Hi bcg,
There has been much debate lately about the ability to search for
someone's telephone number using Google. Sometimes an unlisted number
will turn up in a search, and people will get upset about that and
claim that Google or the local telephone company is at fault.
The truth is, if you have an unlisted phone number, the only way to
*absolutely* ensure that it never ends up online is to never give it
to anyone. Ever. For any reason.
That sounds pretty impractical, doesn't it? But the fact of the
matter is that *we* are ultimately responsible for what happens to our
own personal contact information.
The telephone company *doesn't* make unlisted numbers available to the
public through it's directory listings. We make our unlisted numbers
public ourselves in our daily business, and by doing so in our
increasingly wired society, completely negate the benefits of having
an unlisted number. We have only ourselves to blame.
Let's have a look at what Snopes.com has to say about Google and Phone
numbers:
"# This feature does not work for every phone number. Some classes of
phone numbers, such as unpublished phone numbers (i.e., numbers
belonging to customers who have requested that their local phone
service providers not publish their numbers in printed phone
directories or make them available through directory assistance), will
not display.
# The information displayed is compiled from a number of publicly
accessible sources and is not unique to Google. There are many other
web sources through which users can look up the same information."
Google PhoneBook
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/google.htm
Both of these points are true. Google isn't the first or only service
to offer telephone directory functionality. In fact, if you search on
[ "telephone+directory" ], you'll get nearly 600,000 results! Use the
more generic [ "white+pages" ], and you'll find yourself looking at an
astonishing 1,590,000 results!
Google Search: [ "telephone+directory" ]
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22telephone%2Bdirectory%22
Google Search: [ "white+pages" ]
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22white%2Bpages%22
All of these services cull their results from the same place -
publicly available telephone listings published by local telephone
companies.
If you've *always* maintained an unlisted telephone number, your
number is mostly beyond Google's reach. Only mostly, but I'll address
that shortly. Let's assume for the moment that you haven't always
maintained an unlisted number.
If your phone number was ever listed, and you only just recently
(within the past year) asked for it to be unlisted, you're probably
too late. Online directory services use somewhat outdated sources,
anywhere from 6 - 18 months old, and they may only update once a year.
Anyone who knows your name can look up your number and find it, even
though it's unlisted now.
You can be removed from Google's Phone Book easily:
Phone Book Removal
://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html
(This doesn't remove you from anyone else's, though. You have to use
*each directory's* removal tools.)
What happens if someone has your previously listed telephone number,
and wants to know who it belongs to? He can find out:
Reverse Directory
http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/
If you *changed* your phone number to a new, unlisted one, you can
still be found via your old, listed number until the online
directories cycle through their update processes. This can take
anywhere from 6 to 18 months to complete.
Again, this is not the fault of the online directory services or even
the phone companies. The online directories get their information
from old public listings.
Now let's assume that you've always maintained an unlisted number.
You're *mostly* out of reach of Google, which indexes more than three
*billion* web documents, with that number growing every month.
If you've always been unlisted, you won't show up in the Google Phone
Book. You might show up in other places, though, if you've not been
careful with your information. Online personals profiles, IM
profiles, listing your phone number on your resume and posting your
resume to Monster (or any other job hunting service) or on your web
page. Retailers who collect your personal information may list you in
their databases, which may or may not be sold. Ever list your phone
number in an e-mail signature? In a Usenet posting?
Have you ever given your telephone number to someone, and find now
that you wish you hadn't? Are they angry/crazy enough to post your
telephone number to message boards or Usenet, with the request that
people call you?
Google will find all of those things if the Googlebot has visited the
relevant pages.
Do you own a domain name? Domain name registrations are publicly
available to anyone who wants to look. All you have to do is feed the
domain name in question to WHOIS to find out who owns the name and
what their address and phone number are - even if their phone number
is unlisted. That information is given voluntarily by the registrant:
NetSol WHOIS
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
Go ahead and try it with a friend's domain name. Or yours if you have
one.
So how can you make sure your information never makes it to the 'Net?
The short of it is that you can't be 100% certain, but you *can* take
steps yourself to guard your number:
-- NEVER post your telephone number or your address to ANY online
profile. That includes sites like Monster.com, as well as all
personals and directory sites. If you've ever placed a personals ad,
posted your resume, or listed yourself in a "members directory", you
need to edit all of that information.
-- NEVER post your telephone number in a Usenet .sig. Years ago, when
Usenet was still a baby, posts disappeared into the ether at
expiration. Not so anymore, as Google owns a sizable archive that
grows daily. Twenty years of Usenet postings are available to search
through.
If you've done this, you'll need to nuke your Usenet postings:
"Google will honor requests to remove messages that you have posted
yourself (known as nuking a post). You may even be able to do this
yourself using our Automatic Removal Tool. Please find the
circumstance below that applies to you and follow the instructions
there.
* Messages posted from your current e-mail address
If the email address you used to post your message(s) is still
active, we recommend you use our Automatic Removal Tool. This is the
fastest and easiest way to have your posts removed. Note- that in
order to use this option, you must be able to send and receive email
using the same account from which your messages were originally posted
to Usenet.
* Messages posted with an e-mail address that is no longer valid
If you would like to request the removal of posts made by you,
but the email address from which you posted is no longer valid, you
may send an e-mail to groups-support@google.com that contains the
following items:
o your full name and contact information, including an email
address that can be verified;
o the complete Google Groups URL (or message ID) for each
individual message you would like to have suppressed;
o a statement that says "I swear under penalty of civil or
criminal laws that I am the person who posted each of the foregoing
messages or am authorized to request removal by the person who posted
those messages."; and
o your signature (electronic).
To prevent articles from being added to the Google Groups index in
the future, add 'X-No-Archive: yes' in the header of the article when
you post. If your news posting software does not allow you to edit
headers, type 'X-No-Archive: yes' as the first line of your post."
How can I remove articles from Google's archive?
http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/help.html#9
-- NEVER put your phone number in an ICQ/AIM/Yahoo Messenger/MSN
Messenger/Trillian/Jabber/PowWow etc. profile. Ever. If it's in
there, take it out, and make sure you search the IM client's member
directory to ensure that your information is not listed.
-- NEVER give your telephone number to a retailer just because they
ask for it. Many retailers will ask you for your telephone number
when you make a purchase, and will tell you it's so they can "Help you
more efficiently". This is a lie. They use it for marketing purposes
and they will *sell your information*. You have the right to say NO.
If the retailer insists that you must provide the information, shop
elsewhere.
-- If you own a domain name, edit your contact information. Use a
valid Hotmail e-mail address, a Post Office Box for your mailing
address, a pager number for your telephone contact, and an eFax number
for your fax contact.
-- Carefully read the privacy policies for your credit card, utility
companies, banks, and any other organization you do business with.
OPT OUT IN WRITING from any "information sharing" these companies
engage in.
-- Contact your Bureau of Motor Vehicles and all three major credit
bureaus. OPT OUT IN WRITING from their information sharing. The law
requires that they provide you with the means to do so.
You can contact the credit bureaus here:
Equifax:
Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374
1-800-567-8688
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/webapp/ConsumerProducts/PageFrameServlet?payloadName=pgOrderStatus.jsp
Experian:
Opting Out (There are *several* lists you need to opt out of!)
http://www.experian.com/privacy/opting_out.html
TransUnion:
TransUnion LLC's Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328
1-888-5OPTOUT (888-567-8688)
http://www.transunion.com/Contact.jsp
-- Subscribe to Line Blocking through your local telephone company.
This option allows those with unlisted numbers to show up as "Private"
or "Blocked Call" on Caller ID boxes. Though it might seem a trivial
matter, many *businesses* now use Caller ID, and they compile and sell
the information they gather.
If you want to show up on Caller ID so your friends will answer the
phone when you call, you can selectively block instead by dialing *67
before dialing a business number. (Do note, this isn't available in
all areas. Check with your phone company.)
-- If any of your friends maintain web pages and they have your
contact information available, ask them to remove it. The Googlebot
will find it eventually if they don't.
Wow, that sounds like an exhausting list of things to do, doesn't it?
It is, but in our increasingly connected society, where sharing
information is as easy as googling for a phone number, it's necessary
to safeguard your privacy. We are all individually responsible for
who gets our personal information and how they get it, it's up to us
to be extra vigilant to keep our information as private as possible.
Good luck!
--Missy |
