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> Immediately after completing the verification, I received an email notifying me that Google had overwritten all my personal information. It turns out that bec

by xyst 2y ago

> Immediately after completing the verification, I received an email notifying me that Google had overwritten all my personal information. It turns out that because my mom is the one paying the phone bill, they automatically "verified" the name on my account to be hers How is Google or YT able to determine the subscriber behind a phone number? Caller ID lookup?

hansvm 2y ago
That's a service most (all?) post-paid phone numbers provide in the US. It's one of the reasons FB won't (or didn't used to) let you create an account on a lot of the lower-cost cell providers.
- Springtime 2y ago
  Twilio's verification API for instance has this[1] but only for US targets. Though the person in the OP is from the UK. I wonder how many other countries' carriers have non-business caller name lookups. The other aspect would be if Google were able to cross-reference address book contacts that were obtained from permissions from their apps/services to check what name is most commonly associated with that number. [1] https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name
  - sureIy 2y ago
    I know my EU country also had it, but you could opt out due to privacy. I loved looking up number owners as a teen. I don't know why. It was right there on the monopoly telco's website.
- o11c 2y ago
  Is this just caller id? The system supports it but many end users choose not to pay to access it, or don't know how to configure it. Remember it generally is totally unverified. I ended up being on a bunch of conference calls during COVID, and from what I recall, there was a roughly (it varied significantly between calls) even split between: * caller ID shows the correct name (but maybe misspelled, though misspellings were more common when the host tried to add/correct information from one of the other types) * caller ID shows the name of a spouse/parent/sibling (one notable example: husband and wife both joined the call separately, both with the husband's name, but one including the middle initial) * caller ID shows the name of somebody vaguely involved with the actual person for some reason * caller ID just shows something generic, like a brand or "wireless caller" * caller ID fails so just a number Maybe 1% of users used the app and so didn't have an associated phone number, just a username/email. At some point I was surprised to discover that video calls were in fact supported.
  - hansvm 2y ago
    No, the information is associated with the payer of an account. I'm not sure the underlying data source (probably Experian and friends?), but there are a number of services providing that sort of phone/identify "verification". It's orthogonal to caller ID.
ezconnect 2y ago
He said the form he was filling up asked for the name and address of the billed phone number. So he provided google with the info and google automatically changed everything to what he has provided without any other proof.

by xyst 2y ago

hansvm 2y ago

That's a service most (all?) post-paid phone numbers provide in the US. It's one of the reasons FB won't (or didn't used to) let you create an account on a lot of the lower-cost cell providers.

Springtime 2y ago
Twilio's verification API for instance has this[1] but only for US targets. Though the person in the OP is from the UK. I wonder how many other countries' carriers have non-business caller name lookups. The other aspect would be if Google were able to cross-reference address book contacts that were obtained from permissions from their apps/services to check what name is most commonly associated with that number. [1] https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name
- sureIy 2y ago
  I know my EU country also had it, but you could opt out due to privacy. I loved looking up number owners as a teen. I don't know why. It was right there on the monopoly telco's website.
o11c 2y ago
Is this just caller id? The system supports it but many end users choose not to pay to access it, or don't know how to configure it. Remember it generally is totally unverified. I ended up being on a bunch of conference calls during COVID, and from what I recall, there was a roughly (it varied significantly between calls) even split between: * caller ID shows the correct name (but maybe misspelled, though misspellings were more common when the host tried to add/correct information from one of the other types) * caller ID shows the name of a spouse/parent/sibling (one notable example: husband and wife both joined the call separately, both with the husband's name, but one including the middle initial) * caller ID shows the name of somebody vaguely involved with the actual person for some reason * caller ID just shows something generic, like a brand or "wireless caller" * caller ID fails so just a number Maybe 1% of users used the app and so didn't have an associated phone number, just a username/email. At some point I was surprised to discover that video calls were in fact supported.
- hansvm 2y ago
  No, the information is associated with the payer of an account. I'm not sure the underlying data source (probably Experian and friends?), but there are a number of services providing that sort of phone/identify "verification". It's orthogonal to caller ID.

ezconnect 2y ago

He said the form he was filling up asked for the name and address of the billed phone number. So he provided google with the info and google automatically changed everything to what he has provided without any other proof.