DailyPost 1174
BROKERED TELEPHONE DATABASES
Yellow pages ruled the roost of phone numbers and addresses for number of decades. From today’s standpoint none of the telephone subscribers felt the pinch of it being misused in any manner. From the yellow pages the world has switched over, over a period of time to what in today’s terminology is a database. How the landscape got transformed is another story but the pitiable saga is that we are not sure of the fact whether the phone we are carrying serves our purpose or somebody else’s.
Today we find it difficult to buy anything anywhere without giving the mobile / phone numbers. Some well established brands even refuse entertaining customers on the count. Privacy apart, these supposedly polite / forcible creation of databases is at the core of the problem. In reality these are brokered databases because it is always used for purposes other than customer’s interest. The customer then becomes a part one great research by the company and its associates to keep him entrapped.
The hotels, clubs and large number of other establishments have got into this act and also broker such databases surreptitiously for a price. We live in a world of Brokered Telephone Databases. The spams are heaped on us as if we are bonded labourers. Truecaller’s business emanates out of this fact. Backend what is happening with the humungous telephone databases nobody has any idea, only the impact of which we can feel everyday.
The saddest part is that business development based on brokered telephone databases has become the norm. We keep getting calls from Banks, Insurance companies, Clubs, NGOs and what not. Philanthropy also on brokered databases. Callers are trained for this purpose and there only job is call and talk business to the guys who have not bargained for the same. This whole menace is the intersection of privacy and nuisance. Has it gone out of control?
BROKERED TELEPHONE DATABASES FEED INTO EVERY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE.