Cell Phone 411

Do you have a cell phone? Do you want your name and cell phone number to be listed in a directory? So that anyone could look up your cell and call you? Well, that’s what’s coming.

Last year, I cut off my land line and went wireless. It’s great. Telemarketing calls dropped to none. And now my friends can reach me whenever and wherever I have my phone, even when I’m on the road like today when I had to drive over to Des Moines for a meeting. There’s nothing—that’s NOTHING—that I miss about a land line. At any rate, here’s a news brief via Edupage, an electronic publication of Educause.

CONTENTION OVER CELL PHONE 411 DATABASE
A planned directory-assistance database of cell-phone numbers is raising concerns among civil liberties groups and industry analysts about protecting the privacy of cell-phone users. Officials from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) said the 411 directory would require customers to opt-in to be included and so presents no risk to individual privacy. Some critics, however, question whether the directory could have sufficient enrollment to be sustainable unless an opt-out approach is used. Verizon Wireless has said it will not provide its customers’ names and numbers to the directory, but the company’s user agreement says that Verizon may submit customer numbers to a directory unless users pay a fee to be excluded. According to Adam Goldberg of Consumers Union, in such a situation, Verizon could at any time decide to change its policy and the user agreements could be taken as permission to opt-in to the directory. Because of the uncertainties surrounding the directory and its implementation, some are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to regulate the directory. Officials from CTIA argued that government regulation is not necessary, saying the list will only be opt-in and that no fees will be charged to be either included or excluded from the directory.
Wired News, 13 July 2004

Thank you, no. I opt out.