• Ars Technica, Wednesday, October 8, 2008 12 PM

As much of a nuisance as e-mail spam may be, it can never compare to "phone spam," the nonstop calls from telemarketers that plagued us before the federal government established the Do Not Call list. But the list hasn't totally eliminated the problem, so a new site called CallerComplaints.com is bringing the power of crowd sourcing to bear on overzealous telemarketers.

After launching earlier this year, the site has experienced phenomenal growth--suggesting the problem is far from solved. CallerComplaints.com now receives about 350,00 unique views a day and has grown by a rate of 15-20% a month. Users share numbers of phone spammers and their experiences trying to shut them up, all under the auspices of trying to help one another stop the irritating calls. Whether it's working is anyone's guess.

What's also unclear is whether the site will ever accept advertising. It currently has no display ads and claims to have no plans to start, but the site does hope to make money by partnering with companies that can provide phone number look-up services or other tools that can aid their users in their mission.

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