Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna said he wants legislation to prohibit the marketing of cellphone numbers without consumer consent, responding to privacy concerns raised by a directory business launched by Bellevue, Wash.-based information commerce firm Intelius Inc.
“I have my staff working on options on amending the current state law,” McKenna told RCR Wireless News in a phone interview.
Washington law currently bans wireless and wireline telecom carriers from disclosing telephone numbers absent explicit consent of subscribers themselves, but is silent on third parties doing so. “There’s a big gap in current law in protecting wireless subscribers,” McKenna said.
McKenna said his office is not aware that Intelius is breaking any laws. At the same time, he said the state could intervene if consumers complain about privacy or service quality. There are anecdotal reports of Intelius’ cellphone directory eliciting inaccurate information for the $15 search fee. The service offers to look up wireless phone numbers by name and trace phone numbers to their owners.
Media reports quote Intelius, led by former Nortel Networks Ltd. and InfoSpace executives, as saying it gathers mobile-phone numbers from marketing companies and public sources in which consumers previously agreed to hand over such information. The service advertised on the company’s Web site offers “phone number, address, phone type, carrier & more for cell phones, unlisted & un-published numbers, Internet (VoIP), and other phone types. Phone Lookup also includes the option to confirm current and historical addresses and phone connections within the report.”
Intelius said senior VP Ed Petersen, quoted in recent news reports, was not available to be interviewed for this story.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to make this one work with the tight timing this week,” Ty Rogers of the public-relations company MWW Group, said last week in response to request for an interview with Intelius executives. “We’ll be sure to keep you posted in the coming weeks, however, as we keep updating the service.”
If the Washington legislature were to approve the kind of measure contemplated by McKenna, Intelius likely would be barred from marketing its mobile-phone number directory in its current form.
Industry attempts at directory
The cellphone industry attempted to create an opt-in directory several years ago, but the effort failed because of congressional privacy concerns, differences among major carriers and other factors.
“No wireless carrier is working with this company and therefore every consumer should be extremely wary of this service,” said cellphone trade industry association CTIA in a statement. “As we’ve proven, the data this firm is selling can’t be trusted. However, the fact that they continue to acquire, market and sell wireless phone numbers is a very serious issue that deserves the attention of state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission.”
When CTIA President Steve Largent plugged in his mobile phone number-one he’s had for several years-it came up with a Maryland man’s name. Likewise, RCR Wireless News reporter Kelly Hill tested the service and came up with inaccurate information. Hill’s review can be found at RCRNews.com.
Federal regulators and Congress appeared initially reluctant to take on-in the Intelius context-a privacy issue they’ve made a high priority in the past. “We’re not going to comment on Intelius’ business practices,” said Jackie Dizdul, an FTC spokeswoman.
“Privacy rights of consumers are one of the FCC’s top priorities,” said an FCC spokesperson. “The FCC requires carriers to use customer passwords to protect against inadvertent disclosure of their phone records.”
Indeed, federal regulators and Congress have put bipartisan muscle behind actions to curb a “pretexting’ practice whereby data brokers impersonate subscribers to obtain their phone records. The questions raised by Intelius’ phone directory are slightly different but nonetheless involves the broader telecom privacy issue.
“Consumers covet the privacy of their wireless phone numbers because such privacy renders such phones more useful to them. Chairman Markey continues to believe that consumers should control when and to whom they give out their wireless phone numbers, not third parties,” said an aide to House telecom subcommittee head Edward Markey (DMass.).
