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From: malcolm@apple.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Let Your Modem do the Walking
Message-ID: <15489@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 01:01:13 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 888, Message 9 of 13


Excerpts from an article in the {San Jose Mercury} published on
December 12:

Let your modem do the walking; Computer Directory has all listed
phones in US.

"Compuserve Information Services, a consumer-oriented electronic data
base in Columbus, Ohio, has introduced the first computerized national
phone book.  It includes the name, address, ZIP code and phone number
of everyone in the country with a listed number -- more than 80
million households in all.

The directory, called Phonefile, offers the 725,000 Compuserve
subscribers unprecedented access to information about others,
including powers that surpass those of directory assistance operators,
such as the ability to search by last name and state, by ZIP code and
by phone number."

The article goes on to discuss the privacy issues and claims that the
directory was designed to "discourage the compiling of marketing
lists".


Malcolm


[Moderator's Note: Compuserve also noted this new service in a recent
issue of their magazine. I've tried it and it is quite good. 'Privacy
issues' are a nice red-herring here, but since all they do is list
numbers already listed in public records elsewhere, i.e. telephone
directories and courthouse records, privacy is not a consideration.
The proprietors of the service being sold through Compuserve have
stated they will remove your phone number and address from their data
base on your request if it is *non-published* and unavailable to them
in public records elsewhere. They will not remove it from their data
base if you are listed in a telephone directory somewhere and/or in
some other public records. You can search three ways through the data
base when using Compuserve: Put in a phone number and get the name and
address it is associated with; put in an address and get the phone
number(s) and names; or put in a name and address to get the phone
number listed.  So finally, a single national electronic cross
reference directory. About time!  CIS gets a hefty surcharge to use it
though; about ten bucks an hour in addtion to regular charges.  PAT]