Privacy rights don't extend to Internet phone directories

(This article originally ran in New Orleans CityBusiness, New Orleans, La., another Dolan Media publication).

Internet-based directories and search engines have made finding phone numbers simple and convenient. But easy access to addresses and maps makes it possible for anyone to obtain directions to residences and businesses with the click of a mouse, which makes privacy proponents uneasy.

A potential stalker or kidnapper can find a way to your residence simply by having your phone number, but the service is legal, said Jennifer Cluck, spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general's office.

It can be worrisome that personal information such as your address could fall into the wrong hands, but there is nothing that prohibits them [search engines] from releasing it, Cluck said. There isn't any kind of invasion of privacy or anything illegal about these services.

Internet search engines and directories including Google, whitepages.com, AT&T's Any Who online directory and the Yellow Pages' switchboard.com offer directory services that instantly provide an address and directions to a residence if a person's first and last name or area code and phone number is provided.

Legally, only public numbers can come up, but that information has been posted for years in the phonebook, said Sgt. Scott Accardo, spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department. Ten years ago it would have taken some time to find a person's address if you only had a phone number. All the Internet has done is made the process quicker.

Greg Latham, a New Orleans attorney, says phone numbers and addresses are considered public information.

All the search engine does is make gathering that information much easier, but it doesn't provide any information that wasn't already available even 30 years ago, Latham said. Anyone could call information at 411 and ask for the address that corresponds with a phone number and then look it up on a map.

Google, which indexes more than 8 billion Web sites, began providing its PhoneBook and mapping feature in March 2001 after the company received requests for a better way to find addresses and phone numbers, said Eileen Rodriguez, a Google spokeswoman.

We continue to receive a positive response on this feature as many users have found long-lost friends and relatives this way, while others used the feature to learn that their address and phone number were publicly listed, Rodriguez said through a prepared statement.

Rodriguez and Accardo said they have not heard of any criminal use of the service. Google does allow people to remove their information from their search, but Rodriguez said: They should understand that removing this information from Google will not remove their publicly listed address and phone number information from other pages on the Web.

Accardo said people should use an unlisted number if they are worried about people easily accessing their address or directions to their homes.

But, he warned, that will not keep them immune from records searches as several public documents, including driver's licenses and records, include individual addresses and personal information that can be publicly accessed.

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