Voice to stop those annoying robocalls and texts — Use Google
Cut down on spam calls and texts with a free service.
You register a domain name. The next day you get inundated with texts for logo services and annoying calls regarding website development services.
You can thank services that sell Whois data for cheap for these annoying calls and texts.
One way to cut down on this is to use Whois privacy. Another way is free and still lets you receive good phone calls, such as calls from someone who wants to buy your domain name: use Google Voice.
Google Voice is a free service that provides a phone number that you can forward to your existing phone number. It also has two call screening features that can eliminate most of these spam calls and texts, and a third that stops them from bothering you throughout the day.
Following you create your Google Voice number you need to do three things.
1. Use it as the number in Whois for all contact types on any fresh domain registrations.
2. Go into the Google Voice options and select “Screen Calls”
This makes callers state their name ahead of the call is forwarded to your cell phone. Robocalls have a difficult time with this and you can also screen for telemarketers.
3. Go into the Google Voice options and select “Filter Spam”
The purpose of this is self-explanatory.
There’s a fourth step you can take if you don’t plan to use the number for anything else. Turn on Do Not Disturb under the options
This will forward all calls directly to voicemail. You can still review voicemails to make sure you don’t miss any notable calls.
Unfortunately, if you’ve been registering domains for a while then your number has probably by now been sold a bunch. But changing your phone number to Google Voice for future registrations ought to reduce these annoying messages.
