“But remember, aside from common courtesy, most states prohibit the recording of a conversation without the consent of the person on the other end.”

Here’s a handy guide. I can’t guarantee that this is 100% accurate, but at a high level, it matches up with what I’ve seen from other sources.

http://www.rcfp.org/taping/quick.html

I saw an interesting thought about this a month or so ago. Some comapanies have an automated voice that informs you that a call “may” be recorded.

The word “may” has several definitions.

It can be used to express a possibility (similar to usage of “might”) – for example, “we may see an end to our heat wave today”.

However, it can also be used to express permission (“you may leave the table”).

If you are in a state that requires consent of all parties, could you argue that this constitutes the other party granting their consent?

Considering that the companies could have easily chosen less ambiguous language, I wonder if the courts would be more likely to side with the little guy.

Of course, many of these messages contain restrictions “this call may be recorded for training puposes”, so that even if this constituted consent, it would only be consent to those specific purposes.