The FCC has just released its amended numbers for complaints of all kinds that were filed in the third quarter of 2006. Dealing as it does with such a wide range of communications issues, the FCC hears complaints that cover everything from cell phone billing practices to digital television issues to electrical interference. Most interesting of all, though, are the obscenity complaints—and there were a lot of them.

The FCC received 162,170 indecency/obscenity complaints between July and September 2006. The complaints were not evenly distributed within those three months, though, which is a pattern we've seen before. In July, only 179 people complained. In August, 404 people complained. But September is apparently the filthiest month of all, as it generated a whopping 161,587 complaints to the FCC—a one-month increase of 40,000 percent.

What generally happens is that activist groups like the Parents Television Council ("Because our children are watching") monitor the dirtiest shows on television, then write up the foul language and sexual activity in excruciating, pornographic detail (if you think I'm kidding, look halfway down the PTC page about Nip/Tuck for the paragraph beginning "Sex acts depicted..."). Video clips are also archived and shown in order to generate the requisite outrage. Periodic, large-scale campaigns are then mounted to flood the FCC with complaints over particular shows, and whenever one of these is successful, there's a massive spike in obscenity complaints. Judging from the numbers in July and August, few Americans care enough to contact the FCC without such prompting.

This holds true in areas besides obscenity. Although disgust with the customer service offered by cable companies and big telecom firms is widespread around the office water cooler, that doesn't translate into many official complaints. Only 678 people complained about wireless service quality in the entire three-month period, and only 2,032 complained about any sort of billing or rate problem. Only 100 people were upset about their cable bills.

Surprisingly, 5,741 people complained about unsolicited faxes, which raises the obvious question: people still use faxes? (I kid, I kid.)