Anyone tried this site for 411 Listings?

Posts: 60 · Last edited by Talk4Cheap on Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

Read this tonight on another forum and was wondering of anyone here has tried this. If this would fix the outgoing caller ID showing your name, then I will definately sign up.

This press release was found at »www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?..

Listyourself.net Enables Consumers and Businesses to Register Their Cell Phone or Voip Service Number for Directory Assistance Use
»www.listyourself.net
»www.von.com
Millions of Cell Phone and Voip Phone Numbers Cannot Currently Be Found By Calling 411

MELVILLE, N.Y. and BOSTON, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at VON,
Fwd:Networks announced the launch of a new service for consumers and
businesses alike that will enable them to register their Voip or cell phone
number and be entered into national directory assistance databases.
Founded by Voip thought leader and entrepreneur, Jeff Pulver, List
Yourself! »www.listyourself.net is an independent service that enables
consumers and businesses alike to be "found" in traditional and online phone
directories.
"There are many reasons that someone may have been unable to participate
in the directory assistance infrastructure," stated Jeff Pulver, Chairman of
Fwd:Networks. "One scenario could be the consumer may have a Voip line or
cell phone and their carrier does not provide their listing data to the
listing data base providers, or their phone service is under a spouse or
roommate's name."
IDC, a market-research firm, predicts that the number of residential Voip
subscribers in America will grow from 3 million at the end of 2005 to 27
million by the end of 2009. Japan already has over 8m subscribers today, and
worldwide, according to market research firm, iSuppli, the number of
residential Voip subscribers will reach 197 million by 2010.
"There is a huge transformational shift in the way consumers and
businesses alike are signing up for non traditional phone services -- and a
unique offering like this enables them to be "found" stated Jon Arnold,
Principal of industry research firm, J. Arnold & Associates.

212 Does Not Always Mean You Live in New York
Pulver concluded by observing that having a Voip phone number with a 212
area code does not always mean you reside in New York. "Through another
venture I started, FWD, I know for a fact that there we have customers that
live or run a business from Israel, using a "local" 212 U.S. area code."
Pulver says that because of this growing trend and mobile population, many
consumers who may move to a different area of town -- or across the world, can
keep the same phone number when using a Voip service.

Register Your Home or Business Today
To register for the List Yourself! service, simply log on to:
»www.listyourself.net and enter your information and Voip or cell phone
number. The service will validate your phone number by automatically calling
you back. That's all you do.

About List Yourself! and Fwd:Networks
The List Yourself! service provides a way to publish your Voip or cell
telephone number independent of your carrier. The service enables companies
and individuals to list themselves with the nation's 411 (directory
assistance) operators, and will never be sold to telemarketing firms.
Fwd:Networks is the largest open network service provider for person-to-
person, advanced, real-time IP communications. Fwd:Networks enables anyone
with a broadband connection to communicate by IM, Voice, or Video and share
their presence over the Internet.
Jeff Pulver is the Chairman and Founder of Fwd:Networks, and one of the
true pioneers of the Internet telephony/VoIP industry. Leveraging well over a
decade of hands-on experience in Internet/IP communications and innovation,
Mr. Pulver is a globally renowned thought leader, author and entrepreneur. He
is the publisher of The Pulver Report and VON magazine, and creator of the
industry standard Voice on the Net (VON) conferences, where all sectors of IP
communications come together to discuss, debate, and advance the industry.
Additionally, Mr. Pulver is the founder of Free World Dialup (FWD), the VON
coalition, LibreTel, WHP Wireless, pulverinnovations, Digisip, and a driving
force in the creation of what is now Vonage.

Reader Contact Information
Fwd:Networks, 115 Broadhollow Road, Suite 225; Melville, NY 11747;
Tel: 631-961-8950, Fax: 631-293-3996 »www.listyourself.net .

Media Contact:
Alan Weinkrantz
210-820-3070 ext. 103
alan@weinkrantz.com

SOURCE Fwd:Networks
Web Site: »www.listyourself.net »www.von.com

Posts: 233 · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:56 am Post subject:

Hmmm. It could be of good intention, but at first read it makes me think that some marketing service has found a glorious loophole around the Do Not Call registry. Once you are a customer or signed up with a company they can ring your phone off the hook legally. Verizon taught me that fact. But, it might be a great service for someone who wants to be found, especially businesses.

Another red flag that I saw was no privacy policy all the way up to the form. (I did not fill out the form and I denied the cookie.) No company information that I saw, including no contact information. I checked the domain name registration and there was a name and street address, which is a positive.

How do they pay for this registry? Maybe they get enough ad hits. Do they sell your information?

A word of advice: when signing up for anything on the web MAKE SURE you read the privacy policy or look for their policy even if it is a single sentence. When you signed up for this forum you saw:

Quote:

We don't sell/give to others your personal info.

Plain, simple, straight forward.

After signing up for Do Not Call Verizon (my POTS provider at the time) called and started a sales pitch. I told them that I did not want sales calls and asked why they ignored the Do Not Call registry. After all they are the phone company. They told me that since I am their customer they are exempt. I told them that I was requesting, no demanding, they never call me again. They called me one week later wanting to verify that I did not want to receive sales calls. The moderator of this forum would censor the rest of the conversation.

Posts: 605 · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:15 am Post subject:

Adding yourself to a phone directory is like giving websites your real e-mail address instead of kissmy@a$$.net or something. I would have no interest.

Posts: 508 · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:24 pm Post subject:

I would love to get listed, but I'd be kinda leary on this as well, their site has very little on it, and you're right Galion, nothing about privacy policies phone numbers, or anything.. there is a number and address in that press release tho for FWD networks..

they do seem to be owned by FWD networks, and that seems to be a real deal... so maybe this is 'ok'.. Confused

I'm still scared to sign up tho..

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 13

I sent them an email asking for clarification on their service. Here is my email and their reply for your reference:

Quote:

From: Ian
To: help@ListYourself.net
Subject: Questions re: list yourself service

If I use your website to list my Voip phone number, where does this get listed? Only 411? The phone book? Also, will listing here add my name to the call display database so that people will see my name and number? To give you some background, I am in Richmond, BC, Canada, and my number's exchange is 604-288-xxxx. Currently, when I call other people in my area, they see "Brit Columbia" for the name.

Also, what is your privacy policy? Who gets my name, address, and phone number once I give it to you? Is it just passed on to my local phone company? Or do you keep it and give it to others?

Lastly, if I move, how do I cancel or change the listing?

Thanks for your time,
Ian

The reply:

Quote:

Ian,

The ListYourself data gets into the databases used by directory assistance (411) call centers. It gets into most, but not all, the databases.

The name that appears with the Caller ID (called the CNAME) is controlled by the originating service provider. So your phone company hard coded the CNAME rather than doing a database lookup to find it They would be the correct place to complain. Also, the authentication for CNAME is nonexistent and there are several companies who will insert whatever you want for CallerID and CNAME on a per call basis.

We are writing our privacy policy now. We pass some of the data collected off to a directory assistance database aggregator who provides it to the call centers. This is the same process used by the traditional phone companies.

The listing will expire after 6 months and we will send out an email requesting you to renew the listing. In the next release we will put provisions in to allow you to edit and remove your listing, but you can email me and I will remove you if your request.

Robert
--------------------------------
Robert Klerer
xxxx@pulver.com
914-217-xxxx

Posts: 508 · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 10:32 pm Post subject:

Quote:

We are writing our privacy policy now. We pass some of the data collected off to a directory assistance database aggregator who provides it to the call centers. This is the same process used by the traditional phone companies.

ok, so what do you do with the rest of the data?

it does kinda seem like they may be legit, but I'd wait a little while before signing up, till they get that policy 'written'

Confused

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:59 am Post subject:

Well, three things are now obvious:

Quote:

The name that appears with the Caller ID (called the CNAME) is controlled by the originating service provider. So your phone company hard coded the CNAME rather than doing a database lookup to find it They would be the correct place to complain. Also, the authentication for CNAME is nonexistent and there are several companies who will insert whatever you want for CallerID and CNAME on a per call basis.

Translation: This will not fix your CallerID outbound CNAME issue if that's what you are shooting for.

Quote:

We are writing our privacy policy now. [...] In the next release we will put provisions in to allow you to edit and remove your listing, but you can email me and I will remove you if your request.

Translation: "We're hoping more suckers will sign up and give us their cell/VoIP numbers that we can't get as easily through other means. Getting unlisted numbers is like printing money for resale! Go ahead! Sign up! Because by the time you ask for a delisting, we'll have sold your number to HUNDREDS of call centers all waiting to find out when you have dinner so they can interrupt it."

Quote:

We pass some of the data collected off to a directory assistance database aggregator who provides it to the call centers. This is the same process used by the traditional phone companies.

Your number will only be available on "payfer" 411 services. Not in the phone book. Not on outbound CID. Maybe on telco-provided 5551212 services. Maybe. So they probably make their money by selling your number to the payfer 411 service to make the service more valuable... "NOW FEATURING Voip AND CELL NUMBERS! 99 CENTS A LOOKUP".

If someone needs your number, give it to them. I can see this as being marginally useful for businesses, but you're better off taking out a yellow pages ad, and listing on www.anywho.com and paying for a prominent listing.