Information InFiltration. Club Med for the People.
[- No more phone numbers on beer mats
By TreborScholz, Section whatever... Posted on Wed Sep 3rd, 2003 at 09:31:05 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
Privacy A Total Illusion?
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Earlier this year we had severaldiscussions about privacy on Discordia. Since then many disillusioned emails about Google's recent addition of a reverse phone book feature to their search engine circulated. The company previously perceived as benevolent and helpful is now viewed with anger and resentment by many.
For those living in the United States with a listed phone number a Google search of their phone number will indeed result in name and home address and a map quest link. It is fairly easy to opt-out and remove your phone number from Google's listing. At the same time there are similar sites that offer this same service and Google lists some of them (Anywho, Switchboard.com, Whitepages.com, Reverse Phone Directory, Phonenumber.com, and Smart Pages. From the classic phone book to the reverse phonebook it is only a small step and I'm not sure what causes the uproar. When calling information you can get these same details. All who retrieve your home address in the phone book could then type it into mapquest also. Google and many other sites make this number-address finding easier and the site has a lot of visibility. Is that what causes the outrage?
How does Google's reverse phone book measure up, for instance, to the Total Information Act? In many bodegas the driver's license of younger customers is taken and swiped through a machine thereby retrieving much more personal data than the age information needed to make a legal sale of spirits or tobacco. Firms like Abika or Addresses.com offer everything from email reverse phonebooks, background checks, civil records and more for about $20.
One thing is clear- no more phone numbers on beer matts... Or what do you think?