dts@cloud9.stratus.com (Daniel Senie) (03/24/89)
Several people have made the argument that CPID does not reveal the caller's name or other such information and therefore does not really provide information which would violate privacy. I beg to differ: A year or two ago NYNEX announced plans to distribute the white pages on CD-ROM. They claimed to get all NYNEX market telephone listings on a single disc. While this information would not necessarily be indexed by phone number, building such an index is not difficult. So, a person or company with CPID interfaced to a PC or minicomputer could display the caller's name and address while the phone is still ringing. Dan ================================= Personally I wish NET would just get around to providing touch-tone in this town! All of these services are just a pip dream in this area. NYNEX doesn't seem to feel that it is important to provide advanced services outside the cities. -- Daniel Senie UUCP: harvard!ulowell!cloud9!dts Stratus Computer, Inc. ARPA: anvil!cloud9!dts@harvard.harvard.edu 55 Fairbanks Blvd. CSRV: 74176,1347 Marlboro, MA 01752 TEL.: 508 - 460 - 2686
MAC.ROMOS@apple.com (ben sharpe) (03/29/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0112m03@vector.UUCP> dts@cloud9.stratus.com (Daniel Senie) writes: > A year or two ago NYNEX announced plans to distribute the white pages on > CD-ROM. They claimed to get all NYNEX market telephone listings on a single > disc. So what happened? I would be very interested in finding out any information about Yellow or White pages on CD. *** Generald Disclaimer *** "My employer is not responsible for what I have to say." If you can't say something nice... say something surrealistic. -- Zippy ** Please put my name in the subject ** as my mailbox is a group account on AppleLink.
njs@uunet.uu.net (Nicholas J. Simicich) (03/29/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0112m03@vector.UUCP> dts@cloud9.stratus.com (Daniel Senie) writes: (.....) >A year or two ago NYNEX announced plans to distribute the white pages on >CD-ROM. They claimed to get all NYNEX market telephone listings on a single >disc. While this information would not necessarily be indexed by phone number, >building such an index is not difficult. >So, a person or company with CPID interfaced to a PC or minicomputer could >display the caller's name and address while the phone is still ringing. (.....) Yep. I've seen it running at a Long Island communication show last year. It allowed you to do lookups by region and name, or by phone number. It would probably take a ring or two to do a lookup. Licensing policies didn't allow you to make wholesale copies of the directory, or use it as a basis for sales calls. The AT+T people claimed that they had put "ringers" (as it were) into the database, and that if they found a correlation between cold calls arriving at those numbers and people who were getting this service, they would cut off subscriptions. They weren't telling you the format of the database, although figuring it out and using it on a LAN as a server didn't violate their license, according to the person I talked to, as long as you didn't copy data from the database wholesale. They also claimed that someone had done it. You got a new CD-ROM every month, as an update. I seem to remember a number of around $10,000/year for the service, plus the setup (AT class machine and CD ROM drive, supplied by NYNEX). As NYNEX sold it, this was for a single station.
brian@cbw1.UUCP (Brian Cuthie) (03/29/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0112m03@vector.UUCP> dts@cloud9.stratus.com (Daniel Senie) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 112, message 3 of 4 >Several people have made the argument that CPID does not reveal the caller's >name or other such information and therefore does not really provide >information which would violate privacy. I beg to differ: >A year or two ago NYNEX announced plans to distribute the white pages on >CD-ROM. They claimed to get all NYNEX market telephone listings on a single >disc. While this information would not necessarily be indexed by phone number, >building such an index is not difficult. [other stuff deleted] Actually, US-WEST has already done this for the 14 mid west states that are in their territory. I personally played with this at FOSE (Federal Office Systems Expo) last month. They can key on *any* field quite rapidly. They were showing me how easy it was to find someone, then, if they've moved for instance, find the people who lived next door to them! The salesmen at the booth suggested that you would then call the neighbors to find a forwarding address. I know this info is available through other means, but this was truely scary. *ANYONE* who has $14,500/year can purchase the service which includes the software and a CD per month update. I have to wonder if your name, etc., would be provided on the disc if you have requested that it not be sold as part of a mailing list. It's amazing to me how much the Telco here sells names and numbers. I have a friend who is a dentist and he can get the names and addresses of all those people who have gotten service recently so as to attract people new to the area as clients. YECH! -brian -- Brian D. Cuthie uunet!umbc3!cbw1!brian Columbia, MD brian@umbc3.umbc.edu
sac@apple.com (Steve Cisler) (04/08/89)
At the end of March there was some discussion of white page listings on CD-ROM. US West and Nynex have done this. Both were in attendance at the recent Microsoft CD-ROM conference in Anaheim, California. Nynex had a hospitality suite and their product was being shown on the exhibit floor. Silver Platter announced a competing product 'at a fraction of the cost' of Nynex's disc which runs around $10,000. I was very impressed with the speed and the scope of the product. It was broken in two geographical areas: New England and New York (perhaps just the metro area rather than the whole state). It allowed you to look by name, address, phone number, zip code (I think), and by 'neighbors'. So many credit agencies call libraries to ask for 'nearbys' --people who live near the subject of the call--that this was an important feature for the RBOCs clients. Considering the amount of work that libraries do for the telcos--extended 411 service: they will look up addresses if they have the time--each RBOC ought to make these available free of charge to the reference desks of many libraries. Most will find the price way too high. The RBOCs also want to have a common interface to their discs, and maybe even one search engine. Given the compeititve nature, it may not happen. But it would be to their advantage if it did. Steve Cisler