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Your Safety Is At Risk...Thanks to Google

post #1 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:27am
Thread Starter 
Google has instituted a new feature. Google You can put any phone number into the Google search bar and they will immediately pop up your complete address and even a map to your house!! Only unlisted numbers are immune. If anyone wants to locate you, Google just made it a whole lot easier.

You may remove yourself from this list by doing the following:

Go to the Google home page: WWW.google.com Put your phone number in the search bar. When your listing comes up, click the telephone icon and follow the directions for removing your listing from their files.

I have a single, 20 something daughter, living by herself and this make me extermely angry. What gives Google the right to put that info out there?
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post #2 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:33am
Thanks for the warning. I entered my phone number, and, luckily, no information was available. Maybe because I am unlisted?
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post #3 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:35am
same here- even though we are listed. I did find an article of mine that a newspaper published without letting me know, so thanks for that!
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post #4 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:37am
OMG .... thanks for the info
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post #5 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:39am
I wasn't happy when I found about this either, but the ability to find a person's publicly published phone number or address has been out there for years.

Any phone number or address that is in the public phone book, can be found fairly quickly on a number of websites.
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post #6 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:47am
Thread Starter 
Yes, I know that the white pages and yellow pages are on line. But should you or a family member leave your phone number with anyone, now thanks to google, they can find you. They don't even have to know your name!! Google gave them that. Also....if someone randomly dials phone numbers and decides to harass you with prank calls, they can easily find your name and where you live. Thanks to Google. All they have to do is enter the number they've been dialing.
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post #7 of 18
10/18/03 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally posted by TNCatFancier
Yes, I know that the white pages and yellow pages are on line. But should you or a family member leave your phone number with anyone, now thanks to google, they can find you. They don't even have to know your name!! Google gave them that. Also....if someone randomly dials phone numbers and decides to harass you with prank calls, they can easily find your name and where you live. Thanks to Google. All they have to do is enter the number they've been dialing.
I hate to say this but they always could. It's called reverse lookup. You put in a phone number, and up will come the person's name and address. The one caveat, it would have to be a public phone/non-cell number.
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post #8 of 18
10/18/03 at 11:55am
Thread Starter 
Hmmmmmmmmmm,I guess I didn't know that. However, Google is promoting this as a new handy feature, unlike the white pages.

The implications of being able to find out someone's name and address from a phone number are enormous. Some of the things that this means are:

1) If a crank caller randomly dials your phone number and decides to harass you they can also find out your name and exactly where you live.

2) A thief could randomly dial phone numbers in his phone exchange and when he finds one where no one answers, he could get the person's name and address and possibly break in their home if he determines the pattern when their house is empty.

3) If you meet an interesting stranger on line, or out some where, and give him your phone number so you can get to know each other a little.......he'll also know exactly where you live!!

This list goes on an on. It's just not safe to be able to deterimine a person's name and address from their phone number. Our right to privacy is seriously compromised by these "information providers".
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post #9 of 18
10/18/03 at 12:17pm
Hmmm - I put in my phone number, with the country code, and the result was a (woman's) name and address in Anchorage, Alaska. Odd. There seem to be some glitches. I do agree that this "service" can be abused, but reverse directories have also been around for decades. Our county publishes an "inhabitant book" every ten years or so, which lists the people living at a given address and their professions. The information comes from the mandatory registry - you are required by law here to register any change of residence with your name, address, phone number, D.O.B., and occupation, and everyone is required to carry an official ID card (I don't - no way am I going to carry my passport around). I really object to that, too.
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post #10 of 18
10/18/03 at 2:21pm
Didnt find my number - so am not too worried, especially as they will just hear a tty anyway.
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post #11 of 18
10/18/03 at 2:40pm
I use reverse look up all the time, especially for work. It is possible, but much more difficult, to find the name and phone number for a specific address. That one worries me. But confirming who "owns" a certain phone number is very helpful. And I use that when I get caller id calls that I don't recognize - I use reverse look up to see if its someone I know, and decide whether to call back.

I didn't find anything with my home number on google, but I did find my business number, listed in several directories I was not aware of, so that is a good thing!
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post #12 of 18
10/18/03 at 3:56pm
Thank God it coulden't find my phone # or my home addy
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post #13 of 18
10/18/03 at 4:50pm
I use reverse lookup, to check numbers, when the caller hangs up before the VM kicks in. I put my number into that search and nothing came up. Since I don't have a home phone, just a cell, guess that I'm not there.
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post #14 of 18
10/18/03 at 7:48pm
This function has been available long before use of the internet became widespread. There are companies that input phone books into pc's and produce cd-roms and sell them. There has always been a reverse-directory thing that you could subscribe to, which would list the names & phone numbers at any address in the city you had the book for. Once you list your phone number with a phone company, it is public.

You don't need to list your address, so while I do list my main phone number, it just shows my initials, last name & number, and because I'm in NYC, the first NYC zipcode, which isn't mine. I have a secondary line that doesn't register to anything or anyone, even though it isnt 'unlisted'. At one time in NYC (I dont know if they do this anymore) they allowed women to list themselves under their mother's maiden name, so their own name would never show up. My sister did that, because she was too cheap to pay for an unlisted phone number.
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post #15 of 18
10/19/03 at 12:11am
It seem sto me that if you guys were so concerned about it you wouldn't have your number and what not listed in the white pages either. if you are listed in the white pages I can look you on the internet and do any of the thing slisted above....stalk you, break into you house. Growing up My family didn't have alisted number do to the fact that my Father was a Cop. And with some criminals who like to retaliate(sp???) My father decided to save his family from in potential danger by having an unlisted number.
But anyway if you are in the white pages you are very easy to get too. plain and simple.
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post #16 of 18
10/19/03 at 6:37am
You have actually been able to do that for a very long time on www.whitepages.com They have a part that you put a number in and it give you the address. Then you can take the address and go to mapquest.com and get direction. I really do not think google is a safty risk. You can easily do it other ways long before google made it an option.
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post #17 of 18
10/19/03 at 8:40pm
Thread Starter 
Our privacy is getting jeapordized more and more every day. Phone numbers are what the white pages and the yellow pages are all about. I can see them cross referencing, though it makes me mad. Google is suppose to be a search engine that organizes and indexes web pages for our convienence. I do not think that Google or any other search engine should be giving out private information not posted on the Internet. And no, my number is NOT listed and does not show up on the Google search. I am worried about my 20 something daughter who has no choice but to be listed at her college and my mother who will not pay to be unlisted because she is 80 something and doesn't understand the repercussions. People should NOT have to pay to be unlisted in phone books. That's ludicrous too. What's next? Will search engines soon provide our credit ratings to all who punch in our names or phone numbers? You laugh, but we're losing our rights to privacy and that is NOT a joke.
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post #18 of 18
10/20/03 at 8:10am
It pulled up my old phone #, which was listed in the white pages, but not our new unlisted #.

I didn't want to pay for an unlisted # either, so I just listed my first initial & last name - that's a little better. Ideally, we shouldn't have to pay extra to have an unlisted #. Whether or not you want your number to be public should be a free choice.

A suggestion for young women: I bought an electronic answering machine to screen my calls. It answers the phone with an electronic voice - no one can tell whether you are male or female, young or old. Just let your friends know that you screen your calls - if they want to talk to you, they'll need to talk to the machine. Also, I use a prepaid cell phone - the name & address info on it are not accessible, plus it has caller ID. I give that number out instead of our home number when I want to guard my privacy.

*edit
An additional thing you can do: If you have trouble with prank calls, have a male friend or relative put a message on your machine saying "You've reached 123-4567. Please leave a message & your call will be returned." Nice & generic, but people will know to leave a message if they've reached the right telephone #, because the number was mentioned in the message.

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