If you are anything like me, your heart skips a little in cautious curiosity when a random number pops up on your private cell phone; we’ve all been disgusted by the telemarking call or unwanted stranger who somehow landed your number. Unfortunately, you can expect a lot more of that as one internet company is whoring your cell phone number to whatever low-lifes are willing to drop $15.

To be slightly more accurate, internet company Intelius is willing to release what should, by all rights, be private, for $14.95. I think I’ve found a group that is more despicable than used car salespeople and lawyers.

According to MSNBC, the company has accumulated around half of Americans’ cell phone numbers by simply scouring public records of different businesses who might have obtained your cell phone number. What a classy group of folks; some low-life who never really had many friends probably found a large number of similarly creepy group of folks and decided to put their stalker talents to work so everyone who enjoys the peace and solitude of a private number can now suffer with them.

There’s really no way for you to know whether or not your number is listed without actually visiting the site and shelling out $15 bucks to search for yourself; how gracious Intelius is to not charge you when you find your number isn’t listed. However, I’d be willing to speculate that if they don’t have your info now, they’re working hard to get it.

You might be wondering why you weren’t asked if the sleezy company could list your number; the executive VP, or who I like to call sleeze #2, said that users “opt in” to the program whenever they list their phone numbers on the internet or other venues.

Have you ever ordered a pizza online simply for convenience? If you listed your cell phone number, you just opted into the whole world being able to buy it for $15 bucks.

Let’s just assume you spend the $15 to find out whether your number is listed; if it is, the company requires you to provide different forms, multiple forms of IDs and such just to have your number taken off. Apparently buying a private cell phone line isn’t enough; nowadays you have to pay crooks to not disclose your privacy.

Doesn’t that sound awefully like a mob movie? We’ll protect your hot dog stand from the bad people..but only if you pay us the profits from 3 in 10 hot dogs. Aren’t we kind?

Though the state of Washington, from which Intelius is based, is looking to ban 3rd party cell directories, cell phone privacy is looking fairly public. I suppose the best advice is to make no enemies, ignore random phone numbers, and start avoiding cell phone usage much like home phone owners do nowadays.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 3:06 am under Cell phones, Crime, Legal, Opinion, Scams, Security.

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
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