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> It sounds like someone at Google (not necessarily a programmer) needs to read "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers:" >> 4. A phone number uniq

> It sounds like someone at Google (not necessarily a programmer) needs to read "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers:" >> 4. A phone number uniquely identifies an individual But that has nothing to do with this. The idea here is that whoever is paying the phone bill is the same person who uses the phone. Nobody believes that.

yellowapple 2y ago
The rationale of that falsehood¹ addresses that point: >> It wasn't even that long ago that mobile phones didn't exist, and it was common for an entire household to share one fixed-line telephone number. In some parts of the world, this is still true, and relatives (or even friends) share a single phone number. Many phone services (especially for businesses) allow multiple inbound calls to or outbound calls from the same phone number. ---- ¹ https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHOODS.md https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHO...
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  Your quote disproves you. That explanation does not address the point of who pays. It addresses what point 4 is actually about, multiple people sharing a number, which is not happening here.
- pyuser583 2y ago
  Mobile phones date from the 1930s.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  How does that address the point? They've got nothing to do with each other. Our example user isn't sharing a phone number with his mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his mom. It is correct to believe that the number uniquely identifies him. Explaining that "all phone numbers uniquely identify a single individual" is false doesn't matter in any way, because it isn't false as applied to the phone number that's giving us trouble. That number uniquely identifies an individual. This should be a hint that you've misdiagnosed the problem... shouldn't it?
  - yellowapple 2y ago
    > Our example user isn't sharing a phone number with his mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his mom. Having his phone bill paid by his mom makes it his mom's phone number by default; it's then shared with him, making it a non-unique identifier. That's why it falls into Falsehood #4 (and likely into Falsehood #3, assuming that his mom has a separate phone number that she doesn't share with anyone else).
    - snowe2010 2y ago
      > Having his phone bill paid by his mom makes it his mom's phone number by default; No, it makes his mom the account owner. Just because I pay the bill for mine and my wife’s phones doesn’t mean her number is actually my number. Imagine operating a company and the CEO isn’t the one paying the phone bill, it’s the accountant, and you claimed that it’s not the CEO’s phone number, it’s actually the accountant’s, but it’s shared with the CEO. It’s nonsensical. The number is assigned to a person on the account which has nothing to do with who pays the bill.
      - yellowapple 2y ago
        > No, it makes his mom the account owner. Which makes the phone numbers under her account hers. > Just because I pay the bill for mine and my wife’s phones doesn’t mean her number is actually my number. It absolutely does mean that her number is actually your number. That you choose to share it with her doesn't change that; you can revoke that sharing at any time, or even cancel the line entirely. (And of course, if both of you jointly own the account, then the numbers therein would simultaneously belong to both of you.) > Imagine operating a company and the CEO isn’t the one paying the phone bill, it’s the accountant, and you claimed that it’s not the CEO’s phone number, it’s actually the accountant’s, but it’s shared with the CEO. Is the phone bill under the accountant's name and paid from the accountant's personal bank account in this hypothetical? Or is it under her employer's name, and paid from her employer's bank account? The answer to that question determines the owner of the CEO's phone number, and in neither case is the CEO himself personally the owner of that number. > The number is assigned to a person on the account which has nothing to do with who pays the bill. And if that assigned person was the son then it would've been the son's name that Google pulled instead of his mother's, and Google's ignorance of its own advice would've gone unnoticed.
smgit 2y ago
I have an Indian colleague whose dad was in some kind of coma for few months after an accident. He had a real crazy time keeping the house running. His dad's number was attached to all kinds of bills - electricity, gas, milk, water, internet, cable, newspapers etc. Most of the services would send a verification sms to his dad's phone for any kind of interaction. No one knew the password. And it turned into a major nightmare. It wasn't just a question of paying the bills. Lot of these services had to be shutdown or have settings changed temporarily. And each one had a different set of documents/processes required to prove he was a relative.
- lmz 2y ago
  Remove the SIM card and pop it into some other phone? Unless the SIM has a PIN lock, but I guess you could go to the telco for help with that. At least SMS is easy to divert that way. Think about the services that verify over Whatsapp or Telegram. Good luck finding someone who cares there.
  - smgit 2y ago
    He was in a different location initially. He eventually got access to the sim. So every process requiring sms verification became a roadblock.
- sieve 2y ago
  The only place where the phone number really matters in India is when dealing with banks, AADHAR and the phone company. Phone/Gas/Electricity/Internet/Cable etc bills can be paid through any of the hundred-odd mobile wallet apps. Other than some exceptional cases, none of them require access to the linked phone number.
kazinator 2y ago
It is related. The belief that a phone number maps to a single person, the one paying the the phone bill, is a form of belief that a phone number uniquely identifies an individual. The reality is that the number identifies two individuals: the mom paying the bill and the user of the phone.
- rixed 2y ago
  I don't know if it is still the case, but in the past Android would let you create several user accounts on a single phone.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    To be completely fair, Android also allows having multiple sims and phone numbers on a single phone. I've never heard of people sharing a device without sharing the number, but it's possible.
  - david_allison 2y ago
    It's still the case. I have at least 4 on the same number.
- chrisandchris 2y ago
  This belief gets very interesting with company phones, where 1 person pays several hundreds/thousand phones. Oh wait, that's not a person but a legal entity?
  - wink 2y ago
    I don't even want to guess the percentage of couples where one partner pays for (both, maybe three) phones/landlines, and that's ignoring all children, underage or not.
    - grapesodaaaaa 2y ago
      I currently pay for 4 other people, because the way plans work in the US, it’s a lot cheaper. I don’t bother to update the names on their lines, so they all probably link back to me.
_trampeltier 2y ago
In a lot of cases, the company payes the phone bill or there are sometimes family plans, so there is just one bill for the whole family.
pjc50 2y ago
I have some very bad news for you how ID works in countries that don't have national ID systems: companies use all sorts of awful hacks instead. The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills.
- hyperman1 2y ago
  I've always vaguely wondered how the US knows who to tax, if they have no complete, trustworthy register of who the citizens are and where they live. It presumably works, I just don't understand how.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    They rely on a number of inefficient proxy systems, like the UK: making employers keep track of the tax of employees, and making all the banks report "suspicious" transactions. The US even tries to make its overseas nationals pay tax. As a result, everyone everywhere in the world who wants to get paid by Amazon has to sign a US tax form saying they're not a US taxpayer.
  - htrp 2y ago
    https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/voluntary-compliance/ https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/v... The answer is goodwill and doing the right thing.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills. Spent the last few months trying to explain to a randomly changing E.ON representative how unacceptable it was for them to send bills with my name on it to a non-existent address. I moved out of the country in 2018. They've offered me £10 credit. That I can't use, because I left the country. I need to gather all the emails together and send them to the ombudsman, but there's around 80 emails now.
- 2y ago

yellowapple 2y ago

The rationale of that falsehood¹ addresses that point: >> It wasn't even that long ago that mobile phones didn't exist, and it was common for an entire household to share one fixed-line telephone number. In some parts of the world, this is still true, and relatives (or even friends) share a single phone number. Many phone services (especially for businesses) allow multiple inbound calls to or outbound calls from the same phone number. ---- ¹ https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHOODS.md https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHO...

Dylan16807 2y ago
Your quote disproves you. That explanation does not address the point of who pays. It addresses what point 4 is actually about, multiple people sharing a number, which is not happening here.
pyuser583 2y ago
Mobile phones date from the 1930s.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
How does that address the point? They've got nothing to do with each other. Our example user isn't sharing a phone number with his mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his mom. It is correct to believe that the number uniquely identifies him. Explaining that "all phone numbers uniquely identify a single individual" is false doesn't matter in any way, because it isn't false as applied to the phone number that's giving us trouble. That number uniquely identifies an individual. This should be a hint that you've misdiagnosed the problem... shouldn't it?
- yellowapple 2y ago
  > Our example user isn't sharing a phone number with his mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his mom. Having his phone bill paid by his mom makes it his mom's phone number by default; it's then shared with him, making it a non-unique identifier. That's why it falls into Falsehood #4 (and likely into Falsehood #3, assuming that his mom has a separate phone number that she doesn't share with anyone else).
  - snowe2010 2y ago
    > Having his phone bill paid by his mom makes it his mom's phone number by default; No, it makes his mom the account owner. Just because I pay the bill for mine and my wife’s phones doesn’t mean her number is actually my number. Imagine operating a company and the CEO isn’t the one paying the phone bill, it’s the accountant, and you claimed that it’s not the CEO’s phone number, it’s actually the accountant’s, but it’s shared with the CEO. It’s nonsensical. The number is assigned to a person on the account which has nothing to do with who pays the bill.
    - yellowapple 2y ago
      > No, it makes his mom the account owner. Which makes the phone numbers under her account hers. > Just because I pay the bill for mine and my wife’s phones doesn’t mean her number is actually my number. It absolutely does mean that her number is actually your number. That you choose to share it with her doesn't change that; you can revoke that sharing at any time, or even cancel the line entirely. (And of course, if both of you jointly own the account, then the numbers therein would simultaneously belong to both of you.) > Imagine operating a company and the CEO isn’t the one paying the phone bill, it’s the accountant, and you claimed that it’s not the CEO’s phone number, it’s actually the accountant’s, but it’s shared with the CEO. Is the phone bill under the accountant's name and paid from the accountant's personal bank account in this hypothetical? Or is it under her employer's name, and paid from her employer's bank account? The answer to that question determines the owner of the CEO's phone number, and in neither case is the CEO himself personally the owner of that number. > The number is assigned to a person on the account which has nothing to do with who pays the bill. And if that assigned person was the son then it would've been the son's name that Google pulled instead of his mother's, and Google's ignorance of its own advice would've gone unnoticed.

smgit 2y ago

I have an Indian colleague whose dad was in some kind of coma for few months after an accident. He had a real crazy time keeping the house running. His dad's number was attached to all kinds of bills - electricity, gas, milk, water, internet, cable, newspapers etc. Most of the services would send a verification sms to his dad's phone for any kind of interaction. No one knew the password. And it turned into a major nightmare. It wasn't just a question of paying the bills. Lot of these services had to be shutdown or have settings changed temporarily. And each one had a different set of documents/processes required to prove he was a relative.

lmz 2y ago
Remove the SIM card and pop it into some other phone? Unless the SIM has a PIN lock, but I guess you could go to the telco for help with that. At least SMS is easy to divert that way. Think about the services that verify over Whatsapp or Telegram. Good luck finding someone who cares there.
- smgit 2y ago
  He was in a different location initially. He eventually got access to the sim. So every process requiring sms verification became a roadblock.
sieve 2y ago
The only place where the phone number really matters in India is when dealing with banks, AADHAR and the phone company. Phone/Gas/Electricity/Internet/Cable etc bills can be paid through any of the hundred-odd mobile wallet apps. Other than some exceptional cases, none of them require access to the linked phone number.

kazinator 2y ago

It is related. The belief that a phone number maps to a single person, the one paying the the phone bill, is a form of belief that a phone number uniquely identifies an individual. The reality is that the number identifies two individuals: the mom paying the bill and the user of the phone.

rixed 2y ago
I don't know if it is still the case, but in the past Android would let you create several user accounts on a single phone.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  To be completely fair, Android also allows having multiple sims and phone numbers on a single phone. I've never heard of people sharing a device without sharing the number, but it's possible.
- david_allison 2y ago
  It's still the case. I have at least 4 on the same number.
chrisandchris 2y ago
This belief gets very interesting with company phones, where 1 person pays several hundreds/thousand phones. Oh wait, that's not a person but a legal entity?
- wink 2y ago
  I don't even want to guess the percentage of couples where one partner pays for (both, maybe three) phones/landlines, and that's ignoring all children, underage or not.
  - grapesodaaaaa 2y ago
    I currently pay for 4 other people, because the way plans work in the US, it’s a lot cheaper. I don’t bother to update the names on their lines, so they all probably link back to me.

_trampeltier 2y ago

In a lot of cases, the company payes the phone bill or there are sometimes family plans, so there is just one bill for the whole family.

pjc50 2y ago

I have some very bad news for you how ID works in countries that don't have national ID systems: companies use all sorts of awful hacks instead. The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills.

hyperman1 2y ago
I've always vaguely wondered how the US knows who to tax, if they have no complete, trustworthy register of who the citizens are and where they live. It presumably works, I just don't understand how.
- pjc50 2y ago
  They rely on a number of inefficient proxy systems, like the UK: making employers keep track of the tax of employees, and making all the banks report "suspicious" transactions. The US even tries to make its overseas nationals pay tax. As a result, everyone everywhere in the world who wants to get paid by Amazon has to sign a US tax form saying they're not a US taxpayer.
- htrp 2y ago
  https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/voluntary-compliance/ https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/v... The answer is goodwill and doing the right thing.
ben_w 2y ago
> The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills. Spent the last few months trying to explain to a randomly changing E.ON representative how unacceptable it was for them to send bills with my name on it to a non-existent address. I moved out of the country in 2018. They've offered me £10 credit. That I can't use, because I left the country. I need to gather all the emails together and send them to the ombudsman, but there's around 80 emails now.
2y ago