A site that allows consumers to compare prices for digital phone, internet and TV services has been leaking private address information belonging to people with unlisted phone numbers.
The site DigitalLanding.com, which is owned by Acceller, Inc., initially said it was not doing anything wrong and that the information it provided was all publicly available, despite the fact that addresses connected to unlisted numbers are not intended to be public by customers who pay a fee to protect that information or, presumably, by the phone companies that offer unlisted numbers to their customers. Acceller has since recanted and announced that it’s in the process of fixing the data so that information belonging to people with unlisted numbers will be protected.
But the privacy advocate who discovered the data leak says the fact that DigitalLanding had the information in the first place — the company says it obtained the data from a "vendor" — raises questions about how little protection phone companies provide for customers who request unlisted numbers and addresses.
The information is available through DigitalLanding’s web site through one click. DigitalLanding features a box in the righthand corner of its home page, which allows consumers to enter the area code and phone number of their landline in order to receive information about the types of digital services that are available for the address connected to that phone number. But the results page that lists information about the service providers also lists the address connected to the landline that the user types in. So anyone who types in a number at DigitalLanding’s web site can discover the physical address of the person who owns that number.
In most cases, this information is publicly available in online phone directories. But the site is also returning addresses for unlisted phone numbers, information that shouldn’t be made public. Thus, it’s providing private information for people who might have legitimate security concerns about keeping that information out of the public domain (for example, stalking victims or spouses and children who have fled abusive partners and parents).
"I think if you ask the average customer who has an unlisted number whether they believe something like this could happen, they’d say no (because) they pay a fee," says Lauren Weinstein, an internet privacy activist who discovered the vulnerability. "So the real question is whether people (who pay for unlisted numbers) are getting rooked out of their monthy fee."
Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, uncovered the problem while on a TimeWarner web site looking up service provider information. After typing his unlisted phone number into the web site, he was surprised to see his home address pop up on the results page. The results were fed to the TimeWarner site by Acceller’s DigitalLanding site.
He’s since tested 50 to 60 other unlisted numbers belonging to acquaintances and readers of his blog and says about 80 percent of them return correct addresses.
He was able to pull up addresses even for unlisted "hunt group" numbers — a hunt group is a bank of phone numbers that are tied to a single number. When someone calls the single number, such as a customer service number, the call is routed to any one of a bank of numbers connected to that number. Those individual numbers are generally not known to the public.
"The only entity that would normally have that information would be the phone company," Weinstein says.
Even an unlisted number that Weinstein has never used for phone calls — it’s an ISDN line that he uses for point-to-point broadcast hookups in his radio studio — produced an address when he typed it into the form at DigitalLanding.com.
Weinstein acknowledges that there are services online that sell unlisted numbers and addresses, but he considers the DigitalLanding leak more egregious since, by offering the information for free through a simple mouseclick, it lowers the barrier to people who might want to abuse the information.
Weinstein contacted Acceller last week to let it know about the privacy leak and offer suggestions for how the company could fix the problem by tweaking its site design to require visitors to type in their address rather than list it automatically.
"The correct way to configure this kind of system is to ask, What is your phone number and what is your address?" he says. "What you don’t want to is to let someone put in a phone number and feed back an address and ask them, Is this yours? It’s very, very bad design."
But Rich Mullikin, a spokesman for Acceller, responded in an e-mail that the information Acceller used was all publicly available, thereby implying that there was nothing wrong with its web site or with the information it was providing.
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:08:15 CST From: "Rich Mullikin" Subject: Reply to Dec. 13 Blog Posting To: lauren@xxxx.com
Hello Lauren,
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Protection of customer data is very important to us so we wanted to perform our due diligence to ensure we're taking every step possible to take care of our customers.
The data we use is 100% publicly available information (it is the same data accessed by most major telecom and consumer products companies) purchased from a reputable data service company. Digital Landing does not disclose private information.
Please also know that we protect all data transactions between Digital Landing and our customers in accordance with a published privacy policy that meets or exceeds industry standards. We use the address database only to verify which digital services are available at the location of the customer making the inquiry. We do not sell information and in accordance with our privacy policy information is shared only with the provider whose services the customer has selected. This process allows the customer to confirm the address so we can offer him/her the correct digital service options at the customer's location and permit the customer to select the best options.
Again, we appreciate your inquiry. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Rich
So I contacted Mullikin this morning to find out if DigitalLanding and Acceller really considered unlisted numbers and addresses publicly available information in the way that listed numbers are. Mullikin initially called back to say he wasn’t the official spokesman and couldn’t respond to my questions but said he would get back to me with an official response from someone else in 20 minutes. Several hours later he sent me this e-mail:
We contacted the 3rd party vendor who supplies us with the address look-up data that enables us to provide customers with real-time offers from digital providers. The data was never flagged to show a difference between an unlisted and a listed phone number. Our site simply gave out the information that came from our 3rd party database vendor associated with a specific phone number.
We are awaiting specs from the database vendor to change the way we handle unlisted phone numbers. Once we have the specs, we will require address verification from customers who have an unlisted number. The result will be that the system won't automatically show the address on the website.
Acceller is committed to the privacy of our customers and anyone who uses our site. Now that we know we can fix this situation, we will do so as speedily as possible.
Weinstein says this doesn’t address the larger issue about how much care phone companies are taking with sensitive information such as unlisted numbers and addresses if they’re distributing that information to vendors who mishandle it.
"It does not come to the standard that I think most consumers think it does," Weinstein says. "The way (unlisted numbers are) freely being handed out and subjected to this kind of abuse . . . is the real story and whether there should be a significant tightening of the regulation related to how that information is handled."
DigitalLanding spokesman Rich Mullikin did not respond to requests for additional comment.
