Intelius no longer publishing your cell phone information

by Joe P on February 4, 2008

Last week, much hoopla was made over a new cell phone directory. Intelius, an online data company, had mined web data and purchased lists which revealed people’s personal cell phone numbers. They then decided to publish those numbers via their online data search, on which the company makes a fee for every successful query. We noted that Verizon spoke out against this, as did a number of consumer networks. And in the matter of about five days, the company has announced that they are discontinuing their cell phone data service.

Of course, they can’t even deign to show a shred of humility for this seeming violation of privacy:

“We realize that in this instance we may have been ahead of our time. Wireless carriers attempted to develop a similar product a few years ago and found the market wasn’t ready. It’s clear that the market is still not ready.”

Damn right the market isn’t ready. I might be beating a dead horse here, but the opt-out policy is ridiculous. Most people still have no clue that Intelius even exists, nevermind that their cell phone numbers are available there. How, then, would they be able to opt out?

Clearly, the best route here for consumers is to create an opt-in directory. However, that would bear little fruit. Most people value the privacy their cell phone affords them, and wouldn’t be on board with a cell phone directory at all.

Liz Murray, Intelius’s communications manager and the source of the above quote, continues to lay it on:

“We believed consumers would need many of the same tools widely available to landline users, such as a cell-based, white pages service (our directory) to keep them connected and enable their friends, colleagues and classmates to be able to keep in touch with them in an increasingly transient society.”

If consumers wanted it, consumers would have asked for it. But time and again, cell phone companies have declined to create such a directory, saying that consumers don’t want it. Yes, we’re defecting from landlines. But there are hundreds of other tools you can use to find “friends, colleagues and classmates.” We don’t need a cell phone directory for that.

This sentiment may change over time. We are ditching landlines at a swift pace, and as we get more used to a cell-only world, yeah, maybe a directory would make sense. But that’s years, maybe decades down the road. For now, we’ll take our privacy, thank you very much.

[MSNBC]

Filed under : Consumer Issues