Importance

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Abstract

An anonymous interactive telephone system for connecting a caller to a subscriber without divulging the identity or telephone number of either unless voluntarily revealed. The subscriber publishes an advertisement together with a telephone number of a system controller station. A subscriber reference number is embedded within the telephone number of the system controller station as a DID number. The subscriber also supplies information to the system controller station related to time periods during which calls may be directly forwarded to the subscriber or intercepted by the system controller. The system controller repeatedly accesses the central switching station or local switching station of the public telephone company to activate and de-activate the call forwarding function of the switching station for controlling call forwarding to the subscriber on the basis of the subscriber's published DID number. In a second embodiment, a service for providing call screening for persons having unpublished telephone numbers is provided. In a third embodiment, a caller ID blocking service is provided. In a fourth embodiment, methods are provided by which telephone company switches and associated network components implement the anonymous interactive telephone system and other functions. In a fifth embodiment, a call screening system having answer machine style interfacing is provided.

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First Claim