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Meh, even before 2000 all throughout the 80s and 90s there were white pages (that eventually made it to the Internet) that listed every telephone user's name an
by foobarian 5y ago
Meh, even before 2000 all throughout the 80s and 90s there were white pages (that eventually made it to the Internet) that listed every telephone user's name and address. Talk about creepy! I hated it at the time but AT&T actually charged money (like $5/mo) to keep your name out of the directory so I let it slide.
I wonder why white pages fell out of favor. Maybe the global access made them a bit too invasive, or people voted with their feet. Or switched to mobile phones which did not do this.
- ghaff 5y ago>I wonder why white pages fell out of favor. People could look up numbers online if they wanted to, so there was just no need for a big book any longer. They also never had cell numbers so they became less useful in that regard. And most people don't just call a person out of the blue any longer.
- foobarian 5y agoI meant more why this kind of directory lost coverage overall as cell phones came in. Maybe it was just really that unpopular to have the name, address & number be public by default.
- ghaff 5y agoI don't know the history of why there was never a cellphone directory. There was never a monopoly controlling all those numbers for one thing as was originally the case with landlines--and regional monopolies after the Bell breakup. I also suspect that by the time cellphones got big, the public overall wouldn't have been big on cellphones numbers being listed.
- foobarian 5y agoAround that time frame is also when spamming picked up quite a bit, while at the same time early mobile plans rarely had unlimited talk time making the spam particularly costly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 5y agoMost people's early mobile plans were very limited, the person receiving the call paid for it in the US, and costs were even higher for calls that weren't from your immediate local area. And, as you say, junk landline calls were becoming a bigger deal. This old article https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/06/why-isn-t-there-a-cell-phone-directory.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/06/why-isn-t-there-... claims that the wireless carriers didn't want to put out a directory because consumers would be upset if they had to pay for junk calls.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pomian 5y agoIt was a useful tool. Still would be. Online searches for people are hard now. But note, those were limited databases. Phone number and address. No birth dates, security numbers, etc. It was a tool, not a weapon.
- foobarian 5y agoWe still have a much different attitude toward that kind of data today. If some company leaked all its customers' names, addresses and phone numbers it would be considered a terrible scandal. In the 80s you would be upset if the phone company didn't print out that same data and give it to every customer for free.
- ghaff 5y agoOn the other hand, there was a huge outcry at the time over Lotus Marketplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Marketplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Marketplace That sort of information is regularly bought and sold today. A breach that's just names, addresses, and phone numbers will draw a few headlines, some comments on HN, and a bunch of scolding tweets. But I don't imagine most people see that as particularly sensitive information in most circumstances. (Some exceptions of course such as the fact that you're in a particular database is itself sensitive.)
- mixmastamyk 5y agoThe recent tmobile breach? A database feeds more evil than a printed book could, even if scanning/ocr it were feasible.