• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Cell Phone Numbers Will Not Be Available to Telemarketers

Posted on: Thursday, 19 January 2006, 21:00 CST

By Richard J. Dalton, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Jan. 20--Your mobile phone won't likely become a "sell" phone, experts said, contrary to a widely circulating e-mail that claims telemarketers will soon start calling cellular customers to pitch products and services.

Telemarketers aren't likely to do so because federal law restricts the practice, experts said.

What may be fueling concerns over the privacy of cell-phone numbers is that the wireless industry is developing a cell-phone directory. But inclusion in the directory would be voluntary, telecommunications industry executives said; a cell-phone user would have to choose to be in it.

The bogus e-mail, which claims cell-phone numbers will be for sale to telemarketers and encourages people to register their numbers on the do-not-call list, has circulated so widely that the Federal Trade Commission debunked the myth yesterday on the agency's home page.

But it's not necessary to add cell-phone numbers to the registry because federal law prohibits telemarketers from using an automated dialer to call cell phones. That ban would prevent most sales calls to cell phones because autodialers are standard in the telemarketing industry, said Mitch Katz, spokesman for the FTC.

The rumor began spreading via e-mail last spring and resurfaced recently.

"It's generated a lot of inquiries," Katz said. "I wish that there was some way to stop this dead in its tracks. It shows you the power of the Internet and the power of urban myths that circulate on the Internet."

Katz said registrations have recently jumped on the do-not-call registry, which now lists 114 million phone numbers.

The e-mail tale even duped the office of Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset), which sent out a warning last week about the supposed impending sale of mobile phone numbers.

Marcellino, who sponsored New York's do-not-call registry, which merged with the federal list, said his office sent out a correction. "We found out a half an hour after we sent it out that ... this business of selling the phone numbers wasn't going to happen."

Marcellino said consumers should still register their cell phones because telemarketers could obtain cell-phone numbers from businesses that request the phone numbers. "I think the FTC ought to be a little more careful with what they say," he said.

Kathleen Pierz, managing partner of The Pierz Group, a telecommunications market research company based in Clarkston, Mich., said registering cell phones wouldn't be necessary, however, because telemarketers aren't going to be interested. "But you can if you want to," she said.

Consumers can register their cellular numbers -- and residential numbers -- with the National Do Not Call Registry at www.donotcall.gov or 888-382-1222. There is no deadline to register.

The online directory of cellular phone numbers would be created by Qsent Inc., which validates a person's identity, often for credit applications.

Qsent won't make the numbers available in a printed or electronic directory, and inclusion in the directory would be voluntary, Qsent spokesman David Eastman said. He said consumers could remove their cellular number at any time.

To prevent unauthorized access to the database, computers at companies that provide directory assistance would not store the listings, he said. Instead, Qsent would send the directory assistance company only the requested cellular number, which would be inaccessible once the operator moves to the next screen, Eastman said.

Pierz said the telecommunications industry rejected a more secure process, in which operators wouldn't give out the cell-phone number but would directly connect the caller to the mobile-phone customer.

But under the current plan for the directory, federal law and the industry's vigilance will protect access to the numbers, said Charles Golvin, principal analyst for Forrester Research, a technology research company in Cambridge, Mass.

"Not only would you have the government regulatory structure to inhibit misbehavior, but also you would have the purveyors of the directory itself kind of taking that same protective mind-set because otherwise the value proposition for what they're building starts to go down the toilet," he said.

The wireless industry says the directory would be useful for reaching cell-phone users in an emergency.

The majority of Americans -- 53 percent -- would allow their numbers to be listed in the scenario the industry has outlined, according to a survey by The Pierz Group.

The directory also would make it easier to contact the 17 million U.S. cell-phone users who have no landline phone, especially younger people, some of whom have never had a wired phone, Pierz said. "There are people who want to have their phone number listed," she said. "It's their only phone."

-----

To see more of Newsday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsday.com

Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

More News in this Category