Rumors of Cell Phone Numbers Going Public are a Hoax

National Do Not Call Registry

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home or on your cell phone. Telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint at the web site. You can register your home or mobile phone for free.

Rumors about cell phone numbers going public, have been circulating around the Internet for years. In most scenarios users are sent an email informing them of an impending "cellular doomsday" and are advised to dial the National Do Not Call Registry at 888-382-1222 in order to have their cell phone number blocked for five-years. It’s high time to put this rumor to rest once and for all.

First of all, cell phone numbers are NOT going to be released to telemarketers. It didn’t happen in 2010 and it won’t happen in 2011 either.

Here’s why; The FCC has blocked telemarketers from using autodialers to dial cell phone numbers. This means that even if cell phone numbers were to be made public, that telemarketers would have to manually dial each and every cell phone number that they wanted to call. The increased overhead that the telemarketing firm would incur just wouldn’t make any business sense.

So where did this rumor originate from?
There was once an effort to make a 411 directory for cell phones by a company called Qsent. The cellular 411 directory that Qsent had intended to build would in fact make cell phone numbers available to the public, BUT on an opt in basis only. News of a cellular 411 directory quickly spread around the Internet creating concern that cellphone numbers would then be sold to telemarketers, hence the rumor that "cell phone numbers are going public…"

Just visit http://www.donotcall.gov/ and list the numbers you would like on the list.

References: http://www.bbb.org/us/article/your-cell-number-is-not-going-public-21014
http://www.compunoodle.com/are-cell-phones-going-public/