by Mike Banks Valentine copyright
© 2003
There has been a flurry of posts in discussion
lists and online articles recently about a new Google
feature called Google Phonebook which will now allow
you to do a reverse telephone directory lookup on
any phone number search. The results page displays
a cute little telephone icon beside the NAME of the
owner of any telephone number you plug in to Google's
search box! The ADDRESS of the owner of that telephone
number is displayed beside that and there are links
beside the address which will take you to a Yahoo
Maps or MapQuest for detailed and accurate driving
directions directly to their home! The only way to
make that phone number search result more invasive
would be to include known email addresses right beside
the phone number search result next to the street
address and driving directions! Fortunately, Google
has made it simple to opt-out of this privacy nightmare.
Here is
Google's
description of this feature They make it painlessly
simple to opt out of the phone number search listing
at
http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html
and finally a snail mail address to opt out of the
listing by postal mail if you like.
Google Phonebook Removal
2400 Bayshore Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
along with a warning
"Removing your phonebook listing
will not remove your personal information from other
pages on the web or from other reverse phone listing
lookup services, such as: Anywho.com, Swithchboard.com,
Whitepages.com, Reverse Phone Directory.com, Phonenumber.com,
Smartpages.com"
When I first discovered this feature, I spoke with
a relative whose response was basically, "So
what?" All of that information is available in
your local telephone directory and if you don't have
that, you can call information nationwide to ask for
the listing. Yes, that should be true, but I did a
search for an unlisted phone number in that telephone
number search (of another relative) who was nothing
short of horrified when they tried the search on their
own number and saw their home address, name and telephone
number pop up on the Google phone number search results
page. Not only did her unlisted number show up, but
so did her full name, which is not available even
to her phone provider - because she uses only initials
on her account with them. Clearly these services draw
from other available sources.
Those additional services don't make it nearly as
simple to opt-out as Google does and require jumping
through multiple hoops to find your way out of those
invasive databases. One other service provides a clear
and simple opt-out from the following link:
http://www.phonenumber.com/10006/remove.xhtml
Whitepages.com makes it difficult for you review to
their nearly hidden privacy policy, which is linked
very subtley at the bottom of the page and was difficult
to see, even though I was looking for the link. That
privacy policy offers zero option to opt-out of their
database! They tell you that they collect reams of
information about how you use their site, what sites
you visited in their network, any "voluntarily
provided information" (which is required to register
at the site) and who they share that information with,
but provide no published way to remove yourself from
their database once you are listed, no matter where
they got their information.
The only hint of an opt-out option is via a simple
email address,
privacy @ w3data.com required by their membership
in BBBonline's Privacy program, which is available
to anyone meeting minimum requirements of posting
a privacy policy and providing an email contact to
a privacy representative. Oh, and willing to pay BBBonline
for the priviledge of displaying the rather meaningless
privacy lock logo.
When doing a search for any number in the "white
pages" of Switchboard.com, it returns a page
full of banner ads, some pop-up with pre-filled form
fields with the name of the person you did a search
for! This allows you to easily search for someone
who has so far been successful at staying out of the
online databases! Those paid services will pry into
other public records databases to track them down!
Then there is the pre-populated form that leads you
to KnowX.com where, if the person you seek is not
listed in their publicly availabe free listings, they
will search public records for a fee, but only if
you are a member of KnowX.com. To become a member,
you must (SURPIRSE!) provide your detailed contact
and credit card information, which they no doubt file
for sale to anyone willing to pay for it. Their privacy
policy might better be labled a "Lack of Privacy
Policy"
CAN I OPT OUT OF PUBLIC RECORDS DATABASES?
No. Public records, by law, must be available from
the official public records office to anyone who requests
them. Accordingly, because individuals cannot opt
out of public records databases generally, KnowX.com
does not offer individuals the opportunity to opt
out of our public records databases.
Oh well, you're stuck if you are listed
by KnowX.com but it's good to know that if you are
not listed in the top level of their records, they'll
give you options of looking through up to 38 other
databases for varying fees! But only if you are a
member. Fortunately they allow everyone to see their
prices. Hmmmmm. They provide a list of prices for
each of the places they will strive to invade everyone's
privacy here:
http://www.knowx.com/statmnts.exe?form=statmnts/priceinfo.htm
Curiously, that page is only approachable from within
their site from a plainly visible "Prices"
link but takes you to a log in screen when clicked
directly.
Take a look at some of those surprising databases
that they'll search to scrape up any information they
can come up with to expose your personal and private
information to the world. Since they make it difficult
to easily see that list of resources and prices for
tapping into them, I've posted a matching list at
the address below.
http://Website101.com/Privacy/reverse-phone-lookup.html
If you are a fan of pop-ups, you'll love the KnowX
site. I got nine pop-ups while researching this article
at their site.
Where do all these sites get this information? Few
seem to want to discuss where they get it, but one
(ATT owned Anywho.com) tells you that their database
is NOT populated by extracting information from your
long distance billing records.
Q: Where does AnyWho get the directory
information?
A: All of the residential white pages are
public information obtained from local telephone
records for published telephone listings. Non-Published
directory assistance records are not provided and
are not displayed. None of the listings contained
in the white pages are obtained from AT&T billing
records.
http://www.anywho.com/help/faqs_wp.html
to opt-out of their listings
http://www.anywho.com/help/privacy_list.html
ATT AnyWho Directory Service
Attention: Listing Removals
P.O. Box 944028
Maitland, FL 32794-4028
By far the most invasive and extreme of the information
services is InfoSpace.com, a clear predecessor to
the offensive 'Total Information Awareness Office'
(
article
for more information on TIA ) InfoSpace returns
a results page on the reverse telephone lookup that
not only lists the name and address of the owner of
that number, but those dreaded mapquest.com links
to driving directions to their home, the average value
of a home in their neighborhood, their email address
(if Infospace has managed to get your search target
to give it to them), lists of names and addresses
of
NEIGHGBORS, web sites in their listed city
or town, and classified ads from local listings.
There are dozens more links on the page purporting
to be to services in the same town which are actually
just links to advertiser sites with ability to search
for local dates from Match.com or apartments or restaurants,
etc. Fortunately, there is one more very important
link on that result page if you want to get your own
telephone number and personal info removed from their
database, labled "update/remove" beside
your results that you can click to request that they
delete your information.
When you do that, they request an email address, so
there is some (unearned) trust required in order to
ask for removal. This seems reasonable enough since
one could otherwise update anyones information. But
wait a minute, what's to stop someone from adding
false information, providing their own email address
for verification, then answering the email to confirm
those changes?
The result page of the reverse lookup displays a small
graphic logo link for "Acxiom" in the lower
left corner of some results pages which, when clicked
takes you to Acxiom.com, whose tagline is "Great
Relationships". A link on the front page takes
you to another titled "What we do" where
they proudly state,
At Acxiom, we create and deliver customer
and information management solutions that enable
many of the largest, most respected companies in
the world to build great relationships with their
customers. Acxiom achieves this by blending data,
technology and services to provide the most advanced
customer information infrastructure.
That seems like a very long-winded way to say that
they too are data aggregators who make a living by
selling consumer information to anyone willing to
pay for it. Great Relationships? It takes three clicks
from their "Privacy" link to get to a page
that tells you that it is possible to opt-out.
Consumers may request an Opt-out Form by contacting
Acxiom's Consumer Advocate Hotline, 501-342-2722 (toll
free 1-877-774-2094) or sending an e-mail to
mailto:optout@acxiom.com
Oh, if only Google were the only privacy concern we
had to deal with. It is becoming more difficult by
the day to stay out of databases that may soon have
more information available in one click than anyone
ever thought they needed on you. Privacy is becoming
a rather quaint notion and, inevitably, unfortunately,
may soon disappear entirely. Stalkers, identity theives
and marketers have never had it so good when it comes
to finding victims, tracking them down and selling
them things by telephone at dinnertime.
One positive privacy development is the upcoming "Do
not call registry" to debut in July. You can
read more about it here:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/index.html
That new law puts some teeth into the fight against
telemarketers by levying fines of up to $11,000 per
violation.
Too bad we can't so easily rid ourselves of the stalkers
and identity theives.
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Mike Banks Valentine is a Personal Privacy Advocate
http:/PrivacyNotes.com/