Ask HN: Why is there no quality free reverse telephone lookup service?

2 points·rman666··3 comments

Maybe there is one and I haven't found it? But, it seems like all the reverse lookup sites are extremely scammy. Obviously, it probably costs something for the data, and to keep it current. And, advertising is probably the only realistic revenue stream. But it seems like there should be a way to do this without asking for several dollars for a "telephone number report." Thoughts?

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My guess is that there's no easy way to get bulk telephone data for free. If there was a government service that linked everyone's identity to their telephone number, then it'd be easier to scrape it and publish it online for free. As far as I know there's no easy way to get people's real name from a number besides purchasing a bunch of different marketing/caller lists. This is expensive so you probably can't make a profit just by running ads. Plus I bet Adsense has rules against you running ads on a site that gives away personal info. Just my guess though.

It doesn't exist because many people don't want it to exist, chiefly due to privacy concerns.

In the mid aughts the Consumers Union successfully lobbied against the creation of a 411 directory for cell numbers: https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2013...

Twilio charges a penny per lookup. Highly recommend it.

https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/tutorials/carrier-and-cal...

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