Markets in self-constraint

An Australian phone company is offering customers the chance to blacklist numbers before heading out for a night on the town so they can reduce the risk of making any embarrassing, incoherent late-night calls.

A survey of 409 people by Virgin Mobile, a joint venture of The Virgin Group and Optus, found 95 percent made drunk calls [TC: surely the percentage is lower in good ol' New Zealand...].

Of those calls, 30 percent were to ex-partners, 19 percent to current partners, and 36 percent to other people, including their bosses.

The company also found that 55 percent of those polled would grab for their phone first the next morning to check who they had drunkenly dialled, compared with just eight percent who went for the headache pills first.

Here is the link, and thanks to Courtney Knapp for the pointer.