Forget the good old days of flipping through the white and yellow pages, now with just a cell phone number you can instantly trace a phone back to the owner’s name, address, and geographic location.
And you don’t even need a federal warrant to do it. All you need is a smartphone or internet access from a computer or laptop and you’re done! How to combat this, from the other end? Let’s say you have an unregistered or restricted number that you’d like to block as private, too bad. If your landline or cell phone number is available in any way, it is public. These days, there is essentially no such thing as an unlisted private phone number. The information is somewhere.
Certainly, services like Anywho, Intelius, and People Finder offered limited people search capability for some time. By law, wireless carriers like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and others are not allowed to give out the details of cell phone number owners in any way. That would be inviting a class action lawsuit for sure. But really, who needs the hassle anyway?
All you need is a reverse cell phone lookup app or access to various websites that offer similar services and reverse directory access. And access to most of these directories is very cheap. A reverse phone lookup to find the owner’s name, address, and location only needs one piece of information: a cell or home phone number to trace.
But just for a second, let’s look at the positive aspects of reverse tracking technology, from the other end. Let’s say you want to find the exact location of your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, or significant other. That’s not just for the suspicious mind, by the way, to find out if they might be cheating or cheating. Maybe just check on them on your way home from work, make sure they’re safe.
What about identifying prank or harassing phone calls, that blocked business phone number that keeps calling? So wouldn’t reverse phone directories be useful? Isn’t that, after all, the essence of all mobile information evolution: convenience?
Although these simple cell phone directories and smartphone apps may have an ominous undertone of being tracked or spied on at your exact location via cell phone, there are certainly positive benefits. Finding the owner of a cell phone number through his cell phone whale accessing one of these reverse lookup services is ultimately his fault. After all, they are the ones who keep calling.