When you search your name, you put in your name & address and if it they have your number, you follow the instructions.

I tried this with my name and thankfully they did not have my number. I tried a few friends, some had their number on the database and some did not. So I guess it is pretty accurate. You can not get the number without asking the outfit to get in touch with the other person first (texting) and they will have to agree to let them give your number.

Anyway the service is still down and hopefully the 'illness' is terminal!!!

What about a situation where someone is being harrassed by another, maybe an ex? They (the harrasser) phones 118800 and give a name that they know the recipient will accept calls from and hence get to speak to them.

Dave wrote on Jul 30^th, 2009 at 2:53pm:

The defence will be that this can only happen once for each victim. The victim will obviously go ex-directory immediately afterwards and the perpetrator has not actually got their number.

The need for a proper notification to the person listed in the directory is to prevent that from happening the first time. That is why the regulation exists and that is why it should be applied.

The one catch in the scenario is that the victim must also believe that the alleged caller would be likely to use the service. If offered a call allegedly from a close friend who would have no need of the service, one would probably be suspicious. The essential point stands regardless.

Dave wrote on Jul 30^th, 2009 at 3:56pm:

My only point is that there is no killer argument, to which there is no answer (no matter how weak if can be).

Are we sure that, e.g. in the case that you suggest, the recipient could not ask for more information before deciding whether or not to accept the call, or must they make a decision based simply on a forename and surname?

As I said "the essential point stands regardless"; there could be cases where the orgiinal scenario would lead to unacceptable problems. Do not think however that there will not be answers thrown back, which would reduce an exchange to alternate "what ifs" competiing for which is the most likely.

Proper prior notification, with the option to be removed, must be provided to those listed in a directory such as this. That is what the regulations require; this case has not shown itself to be sufficiently unusal as to make them inappropriate.

Aplogies if I've come late to this subject

After discussion of this on another thread, I've read a bit more, and changed my mind about according to 118800 the benefit on any doubt, which my reply there  implied.

My current view is all doubt is removed, and the company is dirt.

I found Dave Gorman's blog, which starts with an anecdotal story about some students coming upon his phone number by accident, and the excessive number of semi-prank calls he then received, which culminated in him changing his phone number

http://gormano.blogspot.com/2009/07/118-800.html

He then goes on to compare this saga with the prospects of similar sorts of problems arising with numbers obtained  from 118800

But he's not joking, and he found some other important things.

An article in The Register suggests that Connectivity threatened O2 with legal action when O2 refused to give it lists of its customers, O2 saying that only an opt-in approach was appropriate, and the article says that Orange similarly refused

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/12/connectivity_legal_threats/

Where it gets insidious is this

Quote:


- and a reply comment on Dave Gorman's blog points to Connectivity's double-dealing comments on an Ofcom questionnaire, in which they try to legalistically argue that they can assume a change of default condition and consent without people having given it

Quote:


Oh, that's kind of them, but what efforts did the duplicitous 118800 make to do that explaining to people who were unaware of being imported to their lists? Absolutely bugger all.


To summarise my standing now: the news that 118800 threatened legal action to obtain information from the mobile networks, after those networks had been unable to reassure themselves about 118800's use of their customer data, shows me they have  naked contempt for concepts of privacy and consent as most reasonable people would interpret them.