News
01/02/2008 - Verizon To Sue Intelius? Spotlight on Local Mobile Privacy
January 30th, 2008 by Dan Miller
Update: Warren Communications News reports “Intelius is dropping a service allowing searches for cellphone numbers using a subscriber’s name” according to a company spokeswoman.
Directory Assistance for wireless listings has, once again, become a hot button issue. This time Intelius, the corporate brainchild of Infospace founder Naveen Jain, is at the center of controversy. In headline-grabbing fashion, Intelius has let the world know that it has aggregated telephone numbers for 90 million wireless subscribers and makes them available as part of more complete records that carry a $14.95 price tag.
In a world where the percentage of wireless-only households exceeds 10% and is growing, the idea of building a directory of wireless numbers has been enticing. It has long been of interest to small businesses and sole proprietorships where a wireless phone listing could be the only link to a customer or the source of the next lead. For such people, the issue is not whether a wireless phone number is made available through a directory service, but that it is being done without knowledge and consent.
Verizon Wireless, which played the role of privacy advocate during the first wireless DA go-round, is threatening to sue Intelius to enjoin it from making wireless numbers available. But the genie has clearly found its way out of that bottle. Intelius’ source of information is public records, meaning that individuals, albeit in other contexts, have made the numbers available to the world at large.
There’s a deja vu quality to this entire situation and we’d hate to see the idea of a directory of self-selecting wireless subscribers fall by the wayside as victims of a privacy dispute. Intelius is coming under criticism because it has aggregated a directory without the consent of the people contained therein. There really is nothing new about that. Hundreds, if not thousands, of firms aggregate contact and mailing lists, but Intelius is reportedly making it difficult for listees to “opt out” of its system. Individuals must first become aware that their wireless numbers are, indeed, being made available by Intelius. Then they must e-mail or fax Intelius to request removal of their record. These procedures will come under criticism, most likely in court.
We’d hate to see other wireless directory services be tarred by the same brush that taints Intelius. In an ideal local, mobile world subscribers would be happy to make their phone numbers available to others, but they would do so selectively and, perhaps, in the context of social interactions or mobile commerce transactions. Such publication is, by definition, opt-in and context sensitive and may render itself as a “buddy list”, “trust circle” or the product of a local, mobile search.
http://localmobilesearch.net/?p=407
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