Monday, April 23, 2007

Warning: Found You

I recently got an email, a forward that I didn't mind. It was very frightening, actually.

Seems that if you type your home phone number into the address bar of your browser, Google (or something) will bring up your name, home address and a map to your house. This can also be done with Switchboard.com's search by phone. I tried it on someone I know, and it worked.

I guess if you click on further (both versions), you can remove your listing. I would highly suggest you do this. How many times have you had to give out your home phone number? What about your kids? (Likely, they have it memorized, and won't be too hard pressed to give it when asked.) Scary.

Another reason Dr. B and I are glad we are land-line-less. I tried my cell phone number. Came up unknown. For the only time in my life, I am glad to be unknown!

(And then I go posting pictures of myself on the internet, but whatever.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is very scary! Can you tell us more about how to remove it? I went in, and couldn't find any link to remove my address. Thanks -

Julie from SMG

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's unpleasant. My number is no longer a land-line number but a Vonage number so it's not listed on the Google phonebook but I did find my mom's number with address AND Google Maps listing. I submitted the form to have that removed from Google. I tried my sister's but it didn't come up; their number is probably unlisted. Sounds like Verizon is selling their customer lists or else Google is paying some college kid to sit there and do data-entry of paper phone books into the Google database. Creepy! This is not the first time Google's approach has been "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission". They're getting hit with lawsuits every time they turn around for publishing intellectual property without permission. I like Google for it's search capability but have an issue with their assumption that everything "should" be public domain. Thanks for bringing this one to our attention.

Ronica said...

Click on the link for "Phonebook results for #######". That will take you to a page that will let you remove your number.

You probably also want to go to switchboard.com and do the same.

Anonymous said...

Something really weird as well - I typed in my mother's number to check it. It came up with a different person's name and address but in the same city. ???

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