What's in a number

Just prior to Memorial Day, I received an urgent e-mail from a friend.  It read in part:

"If you go to www.google.com and type in your telephone number it will actually pull up directions to your house... If your phone number is listed, it will show your name and address and give you two map options: Yahoo and MapQuest. Check it out and see how accurate the map is to your home...In the age of Internet communication, we all know the dangers of this--for adults and children!"

As readers of this column know, I have consistently explained that the two things in the future that are the foundation for creating next-generation network-centric value are:

• My identity (broadly defined)

• My location (physical and virtual)  

Securing and parsing out this information to only those with whom we have "trusted" relationships is the challenge of our times. It is what ultimately either undermines or engenders confidence in all things "E."

This e-mail got me thinking. 

First: Isn't it nice that Google has taken the hassle out of what used to be a two-step process--using a reverse directory and then having to reproduce the address in one of the engines that generate maps and directions. Talk about ease of use!

Second: Google is not terribly sophisticated. I wondered what else is available for finding people and their places if I really want to do so. I went to Google and searched on the words "Reverse Directories." There were 361,000 hits. The first 10 listings were enough to scare the heck out of me. For free they offered to immediately find any name and address you gave them if it appeared in a published directory somewhere. For an additional fee, ranging from a few dollars to more than $100, they advertised the ability to find in less than a week, the name and address of unpublished numbers (I wonder how one gets unpublished numbers, especially if they are blocked by caller ID), the owners of cellphones, or the telephone number of people who have unpublished numbers. Yikes. 

This is a case where the perceived value of information is interesting. I remember as a young political volunteer, that the single most valuable piece of information of any campaign was the most recent printed edition of a reverse directory. The value was that the versions that were listed by street and by neighborhood, instead of by names, made both house-to-house canvassing and election day get-out-the-vote initiatives orders of magnitudes easier. I haven't been in a political campaign in more than a quarter century and am unfamiliar with the current tools of the trade. However, the mind boggles at the possibilities, political and otherwise. The marriage of things like reverse directories, instant digital directions and hook-ins to inexpensive data bases of all sorts that could allow someone--with our without malice--to build a searchable profile of various target audiences based on all kinds of variables is frightening. It goes well beyond the current problems with things like identity theft and credit card fraud.

In the brave new world of instant digital regurgitation, what makes all of this interesting and at the same time horrific is that the perceived value of something that seems so innocuous and inexpensive, my telephone number and its listing in a phone directory, can now, without my permission, be part of an impressive array of very valuable capabilities to at a minimum invade my privacy. Worse case, it can be the tool for someone with bad intentions to get at me and my family.

Third. While it is too late to turn back the clock on the linking of powerful databases with those that include rudimentary information about where I am and how to reach me with other important tidbits, it puts the current imbroglio over spam in a slightly different perspective. 

Yes, it would be nice if when I choose to opt out of an e-mail spammer list, they actually deleted me from it. However, I hold out little hope that legislation in this country is going to deter those offshore from continuing to fill up my inbox with junk. We seem to be rushing into an era of permission-based interactions where permission being granted or denied creates nothing more than a very false sense of security. (Just as an aside, given the preponderance of this type of spam, it would be nice if someone started a service that matched the penis enlargement people with the breast enlargement ones--Match.com could get a real run for its money). What is more perplexing is the contemplation of what happens next if the bad guys continue to have the upper hand in the permission technology arms race.

While I don't pretend to have a clue as to what the answer is to the yin of my desire to publish my contact information so people who I wish to interact with can reach me, and the yang of wanting to block everyone else and not have the published material used for purposes that I deem inappropriate, it seems that those looking at the issues need to look further down the road than just the immediate e-mail spam and direct marketing phone call issues. The convergence of these two alone does not portend good things.

Life was certainly a lot easier when Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) was not only the province of the phone company but was carefully guarded in terms of its use for competitive commercial purposes. If phone numbers of all sorts, location (think E-911 mobility as well as physical address), and Internet addresses are all in service provider electronic repositories, it does seem that sooner rather than later would be a good time to redefine the obligations and liabilities that attach to appropriate protection and sale of this information. 

What value is there in a number? In the information age, it is probable that having responsibility for the number is more valuable than all the infrastructure out there that is employed to make that number useful. Something to think about.

Peter Bernstein is President of Infonautics Consulting Inc. He can be reached at pb111451@optonline.net.