Mobile phone directory crashes as public flocks to opt-out

Mobile owners who feared that their phone details were about to be made public by a new directory inquiry service have crashed its website in a stampede to remove their names from the system.

The company - 118800 - claims to have a database containing details of 16m handsets out of a national total of around 40m, and has launched a service allowing customers to buy the details from them. But as word spread of the new service and emails circulated around British offices, people rushed to have their details removed from the system - even though there is a one-in-three chance that they were never on it in the first place.

Today those following a link to the 118800 website were greeted by a message telling them the site was down for "essential maintenance" and to come back tomorrow.

The service has angered MPs and civil liberties campaigners who say it amounts to an invasion of privacy as mobile numbers have not traditionally been publicly listed and are only given out to people by the phone owner. There are also concerns about how those numbers on the database were gathered.

The company behind 118800, Connectivity, has sourced the numbers from market research companies who have asked people if they would be prepared to allow their numbers to be used for commercial purposes; brokers who buy and sell lists of phone numbers; and also from online businesses who require customers to give their contact details, and then ask them to tick boxes if they do not want their number passed on.

Such is the public's displeasure over the new service, which got off the ground after technical difficulties last month, that other 118 directory providers

say they have been inundated with complaints even though they have nothing to do with 118800.

Connectivity argues it does not compromise privacy as it does not hand over the mobile phone numbers to users - instead it acts as an intermediary that puts the caller in touch with the person they are trying to find and people who are contacted are asked if they would like to take the call.

The service was approved by the Information Commissioner's Office which said that as mobile numbers are not actually given out personal details remained private. It also said that opting out had been made easy - although the popularity of doing just that appears to have downed the system.