Is there pent-up demand for anonymous, disposable phone numbers? That may be the case or it may just be serendipity that over the past week or so two companies have stepped up with plans to give consumers free or low-cost disposable, anonymous phone numbers.
The first is NetZero, which has a new service called PrivatePhone. PrivatePhone is a free phone number and voice mail option that allows consumers to give out numbers without having to give out their home or cell number.
That’s all it is — a number and voice mail box to check for messages. The calls can be forwarded to regular phones for a fee.
Now another company called Jangl has come out with a service that allows people to “anonymize” themselves with disposable phone numbers. At first blush my thought is: why? Are there so many people that we meet in the course of a day that we don’t trust but to whom we still want to give our phone numbers?
On second thought, the answer is: yes. So many of our online activities involve working with people we don’t know and never meet and oftentimes we’re required to give out phone numbers during our web-based activities.
Where would you use something like this? When you’re buying and selling online. We see people publicize their cell phone numbers all the time on craigslist. With Jangl they could add a layer of anonymity.
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:50 AM|Comments(0)
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