The present invention relates generally to a method and system for providing calling party identification and more particularly to a method and system for providing calling party identification for an unidentified calling party to a subscriber connected to the Internet via their telephone.
Many telephone customers subscribe to caller ID service. Caller ID provides to the subscriber an identification of the calling party. Some calling parties' identity may be unavailable, based upon the location of the calling party or if the calling party selectively blocks the calling party identification. For this case, some telephone customers also subscribe to a feature in which incoming calls which do not include calling party identification (either unavailable or blocked) are first “screened.” For screening, the telephone system first prompts the calling party to audibly identify itself to the telephone system. This audible identification is then played to the subscriber, who can then decide to accept or reject the call.
Caller ID can also be provided to a telephone subscriber logged onto the Internet via the subscriber's line: If a new call is made to the subscriber's line while connected to the Internet, the subscriber sees a “pop-up” screen on their computer display informing them of the new call and presenting several options for disposal of the call. These dispositions include: taking the call over the Internet, sending the call to the subscriber's voicemail, rejecting the call, and hanging up the Internet connection and accepting the call over the phone. This feature works well when the identity of the calling party is known; however, when the calling party identity is unknown (e.g., the calling party information is unavailable or blocked), the information presented to the subscriber is simply “unknown call.” The subscriber does not have enough information to determine whether to accept or reject the call. Even if the subscriber subscribes to both the caller ID and audible identification feature, the pop-up screen for a call with no calling party information would simply show that the calling party identification is not available. The audible identification cannot be provided to the subscriber.