Directory assistance is becoming less useful as fewer people want their full names, telephone numbers, or street addresses listed. The directory assistance trade would like that trend stopped, reversed, actually, by including in their databases e-mail addresses, IM contacts, cellular numbers and so on.

Kathleen Pierz consults to the directory assistance industry and has written this file on how DA is changing in our mobile, wireless age. It's good information:

On Privacy and the changing role of Directory Assistance (.pdf)

After reading about the industry's concerns, about what they want, I e-mailed her to ask: "What does a customer get from disclosing more information?" Her response:

"I guess that is the question - what is the benefit to having your wireless number - or any other personal information listed? Remember Directory Assistance was introduced when less than 1/2 of the US had a phone and no one had things like email, pagers, mobile phones, IM, and website addresses. In its current form directory assistance is a dinosaur."

"Ultimately, the answer is different for each individual. I have a brother who is a sheriff, his answer is no information of any kind ever, anywhere. On the other side, my wireless and a 'not-so-private' email (one of several) are on my list of things I'd like listed - but hard to find in the sense that someone looking for a connection to me via on of these routes has to ID themselves to me so that I can accept or reject this contact. In addition, I want them to have to pay for it so that it weeds out nuisance contacts."

"Just as a for instance, I'm a mom with school age kids. My son gets hurt in sports and goodness knows what else with alarming consistency at school. His current school has all my contact information but his Jr. High did not have my mobile. Once he had to wait almost 2 hours while they tracked me down (out of the office). By the time I got there I was a bigger wreck than he was and he got 22 stitches - talk about feeling like a failure as a parent."

"My clients and colleagues frequently lose or don't have my mobile number with them - I want them to find me. I've also drop-kicked my mobile phone across airports and lost contact information - when I needed it most. Plus I have not only moved house frequently, but have had to change my email address (both personal and professional) entirely too much. Every time a DSL provider goes belly up or I changed service providers I get a new email address and anyone who did not copy the new one in from the note I sent 'lost' my email address. So, for me, sign me up - but only for these two pieces of information and with privacy protection."

"There are lots of ways to do this and lots of companies are working on ideas. One that you've probably seen from an email centric model is Plaxo. After reading all the fine print I signed up and sent out over 400 requests to professional contacts. Nearly 300 responded and about 10% actually joined Plaxo (external link) - very viral. Anyone who joined is now linked to my information and if either party changes data it populates into the other's contact information automatically."

"OK, so I could easily write 100 pages on this (and have...) but this is one way to look at it. There are of course people who will never list their data - that's cool and it works for them. And, some people who'd put in everything. But, as long as you can get critical mass in the database, it works.

This type of privacy protection also points to a way to keep fixed lines in the database as well. I've see focus groups where as many as 50% of unlisted fixed line subscribers say they would list their number if they knew that they would know who was calling and could say 'reject' when they heard the pre-announcement of who was calling if they did not want to talk to them.

This debate will go on for years, but in the mean time I think the CTIA effort will miss in the sense that they are currently looking at an 'opt-in' model without privacy protections."

Kathleen Pierz

Managing Partner, The Pierz Group

+1 248-922-1501M

+1 248-867-8164

email: kpierz@pierzgroup.com

website: http://www.pierzgroup.com

Two more questions. Should we feel we have to use all these new ways to keep in touch? And why not use instead an answering service? That would provide a single point of contact.

"Whether we should use these ways to keep in touch is an issue I look at more from a social point of view than a technical one. I have no problem turning off the phone, but I know this is not the case for many. In focus groups people readily identified their bosses and people they did not want to find them on their private mobile phones.

"They alternately describe their phones as tethers that hold them to the office and "life lines" that let them work on a mobile basis. Now, that said, there are people working on solutions that mimic the personal assistant:

GNR (Global Name Registry) has outlined tiered access to information. The subscriber creates as many profiles as the want and then provides access to those various profiles (some have very little info, all the way up to every possible way to find you).The subscriber identifies who can access what information."

"Context Connect (external link) assigns contextual information to listings so that I might be able to find you by looking up or asking for "Thomas Farley from Privateline" with no need to know where you are.

422 is taking a similar approach and is focusing on national database that carriers can access and that subscribers can put the data in there that they want to."

"InfoNXX Mobile Source product let's you hear who wants to reach you and then you can say "accept" , "reject" or "voicemail" for every single in-bound DA call (and the caller pays for all minutes and the original DA Call.

Flatwire has a very simple to implement "listed" / "not listed" / "listed for messages only" plan that allows carriers to charge to be listed for messages and charge callers for sending you a message saying who wants to reach you and how to contact them.

CTIA of course is looking at creating a national opt-in database for wireless subscribers with no privacy tough way to go, other countries got about 10% of subscribers to list.)"

"In the end we need to evolve both socially and technologically and we are behind on both fronts."

Kathleen Pierz

Many, many more related pages! Click for a list. Information on J.R. Snyder Jr., operators, directory assistance working and history, placing toll calls and so on. Great reading.