You might think that who you call — whether doctor, lawyer, self-help counselor, physic or pizza maker — is your business. If so, you could reasonably assume that how often you call and how long you talk would be between you and the other end of the line.

Think, and assume, again. At least according to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled recently that all that who, what, where and when stuff is property not of you but of your telephone company.

The case was brought by Denver-based U.S. West, in challenge to Federal Communications Commission rules designed to protect the public from having its telephone records turned into telemarketing merchandise without its permission. The FCC developed those rules in response to a mandate from Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The decision by the three-member panel of federal judges is odd, given that all the FCC requires is for telephone companies to receive permission — written, oral or electronic — from consumers before using their calling records to market new services. The rationale behind the decision is downright bizarre — the First Amendment.

The court said the FCC restrictions interfered with the telephone company’s right to free speech; that is, the right to pester customers during dinner with sales pitches for calling plans, pagers and cell phone services. As for consumer privacy, the court wrote: “Although we may feel uncomfortable knowing that our personal information is circulating in the world, we live in an open society where information may pass freely.”

The judges may feel uncomfortable. They sound confused.

FCC Chairman Bill Kennard certainly doubts the judges thought this one through, saying, “It’s a sad day when the First Amendment Rights of telephone companies to solicit business outweighs the rights of consumers to protect their privacy.” Despite U.S. West’s claim that it has no plans to use the information for anything other than enhancing its ability to market services to existing customers, Chairman Kennard, no doubt made a pessimist through bitter experience, foresees a day when telephone companies won’t be able to resist the lure of the lucrative personal-information market.

The FCC has asked for a new hearing, for a chance to restate its case and for the court to rethink its position. That would be good. Perhaps next time the court will consider how the act of signing up for telephone service became anything more than buying access to a system of switches and wires.

Several privacy-watchdog groups already have blasted the ruling, predicting that it will lead to the demise of all privacy protections in communications, whether by telephone, Internet or semaphore; every conversation, save those conducted in a whisper over the back fence, will produce information about you with a price tag attached. Someday, Big Brother may be watching; Big Business already is listening.