A few weeks ago I commented on the 118800 mobile phone directory. Well, it looks like things may have gone tits up for Connectivity, the company running the directory.
Has a popular revolt done for 118800? The controversial mobile phone directory launched last month, but has struggled to convince the great British public that it’s a good idea to have your mobile number available for people to look up.
For days now the website has been down, and the service has been unavailable. And that’s apparently all due to people power – a wave of angry users trying to get their numbers removed from the site has been too big for the company’s systems to cope.
Oh dear. It does look as if they misread the market somewhat. Firstly the mobile operators refused to let them have access to the raw data, giving them access only to those numbers on lists being sold on the open market. So, despite any rumours or emails that you may have come across, the company never had access to all UK mobile numbers, causing the business model to be hamstrung before it started. Then opposition went viral. So, it seems, people do value their privacy. Well, thank goodness for that.
But what’s interesting is how violently people now feel about their privacy. In an age when many are apparently happy to share intimate details of their lives on social networks – even shots of their husbands in their swimming trunks – it seems that we feel our mobile numbers are uniquely private.
Yes, we do and O2, Orange, Vodafone et al got it; Connectivity did not and it may cost them dear. It is entirely possible that our land-line numbers would be regarded in exactly the same way had the telephone been invented now rather than a century ago:
You can see the change in attitudes reflected in what’s happened with the fixed line directory. Twenty years ago, being “ex-directory” meant being part of a rather exclusive club, but BT tells me that around 50% of people now choose not to have their numbers listed.
Indeed so. As the linked article points out, it’s nothing to do with paranoia, but the massively annoying direct marketers who plague us with their unwanted tat. If Connectivity want to know why their business model has collapsed, perhaps that is where they should be looking.
All in all, this is good news, even if Connectivity don’t think so. Consumer power still has the means to send a powerful message to business and long may it continue.
These days it’s crazy to let any details out whatsoever.
.-= ´s last blog ..[nicholas craig] third rate thespian =-.
Well, not sure if its the business model or the wave upon wave of misinformation that broght 118800 to its knees. I have received five different bulk email messages telling me that i’d olny get one opportunity to opt out (false), that the mobile phone numbers would be available to all and sundry (false), that I’d get telemarketers cold calling my mobile(false unless they want to spend a quid only to have their calls rejected when they said who they were).
I LIKE the idea of the service and I opted in. I’m sure not everyone will agree but I don’t think I’m so special that dozens of people will try to call me!
What I am MUCH MORE CONCERNED ABOUT IS 192.com. Over there anyone can put in my name and town and get access to my name and address, my wifes name, my birthdate and even my mothers maiden name! For pitys sake they do half the job of an identity theifs job for them!
The 118800 lot might not be saints – I wouldn’t know but I’d rather be in their company than the spooks over at 192.com!
Certainly there was plenty of misinformation and I had to correct a few people who had received these emails. However, I am opposed to any service that is opt out rather than opt in. I decide who has access to my mobile number and no one else. Clearly, I am not alone in that thinking.
I take your point about 192.com – but each is as bad as the other in principle; both are trading on private personal information without specific prior consent.
Kind of a nice object lesson on the difference between private and public services, is it not?
A private company tries to do something that most people don’t want, and it ends up f***ed. See also under Phorm, to which something similar appears to be happening.
When Government, otoh, does something that most people don’t want (ID Cards, the EU, etc etc etc ad nauseam), it doesn’t matter what anyone does or says, the bloody thing will never die but keeps on and on coming back to life to plague us.
This is surely one good reason that the less that’s done by the State, the better.
Hi Neil from 118800 here,
Thanks for talking about 118800, just to clear a few points up.
We don’t give out or sell data to anyone, so cold calling will not result from our service. Cold calling is common on landline numbers because landline data is freely and widely available. The mobile numbers in our directory are available to no one. 118800 connect people that know each other, we don’t give out numbers.
In the majority of cases it will be a friend or colleague who has lost your number, doesn’t have it on them or has lost their mobile and needs to get in touch. If you are contacted it will be by 118800 calling to announce the name of that person, or sending a text message with the name and number of the person trying to get in touch. It will then be up to you whether you want to speak to them or not.
For more information please visit our website on http://www.118800.co.uk
Or watch a video of how the service works http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgLWB123JA
Neil,
Thanks for that.