Many cell phone users are clamoring for an online cell phone directory, but privacy advocates and other cell phone users concerned about their privacy are keeping it from coming into being.
Verizon, Spring, T-Mobile and AT&T all fought against the cell phone directory created by Intelius. They said it was just too much information gathered about people without their consent, despite the fact that it was compiled in a legal way.
One Verizon representative put it bluntly.
“Stop it,” said Steve Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel of Verizon Wireless, in a statement. “This is a violation of Americans’ privacy. People expect their cell phone numbers to remain private.”
He and other privacy advocates have a point, people use cell phone for the fact that they are so private.
But what about those people who want to find a cell phone number? It’s been nearly impossible without calling around or looking it up elsewhere.
After looking through Facebook, MySpace and Google, most people come up with nothing. But because cell phone records are stored in public records, they are still easily available online.
This type of search is legal because it’s connected to government records. Unlike other databases which hold onto just the number, it searches all kinds of things as well as public records. And because it searches these records, it’s much more accurate when searching for telephone numbers since each time someone gets a loan or buys a house or goes to court their number is updated.