More on 118800
A few weeks ago I commented on the 118800 mobile phone directory. Well, it looks like things may have gone tits up for Connectivity, the company running the directory.
Has a popular revolt done for 118800? The controversial mobile phone directory launched last month, but has struggled to convince the great British public that it’s a good idea to have your mobile number available for people to look up.
For days now the website has been down, and the service has been unavailable. And that’s apparently all due to people power – a wave of angry users trying to get their numbers removed from the site has been too big for the company’s systems to cope.
Oh dear. It does look as if they misread the market somewhat. Firstly the mobile operators refused to let them have access to the raw data, giving them access only to those numbers on lists being sold on the open market. So, despite any rumours or emails that you may have come across, the company never had access to all UK mobile numbers, causing the business model to be hamstrung before it started. Then opposition went viral. So, it seems, people do value their privacy. Well, thank goodness for that.
But what’s interesting is how violently people now feel about their privacy. In an age when many are apparently happy to share intimate details of their lives on social networks – even shots of their husbands in their swimming trunks – it seems that we feel our mobile numbers are uniquely private.
Yes, we do and O2, Orange, Vodafone et al got it; Connectivity did not and it may cost them dear. It is entirely possible that our land-line numbers would be regarded in exactly the same way had the telephone been invented now rather than a century ago:
You can see the change in attitudes reflected in what’s happened with the fixed line directory. Twenty years ago, being “ex-directory” meant being part of a rather exclusive club, but BT tells me that around 50% of people now choose not to have their numbers listed.
Indeed so. As the linked article points out, it’s nothing to do with paranoia, but the massively annoying direct marketers who plague us with their unwanted tat. If Connectivity want to know why their business model has collapsed, perhaps that is where they should be looking.
All in all, this is good news, even if Connectivity don’t think so. Consumer power still has the means to send a powerful message to business and long may it continue.
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