Google: Right Up Your Alley and Pointing at the Door

You've heard the implied threat: "We know where you live."

Well, they do -- especially with the help of what Nielsen/NetRatings and ConsumerGuide rate as the top search engine on the Internet: Google.

Go to Google's regular search page (www.google.com), key in your area code and phone number, using hyphens, then click "Google Search." In most cases, almost immediately, that brings up your name, address and phone listing.

Big deal, right? Here's the bonus that disturbs some people struggling to keep their privacy private: Directly next to your name and address are links to "Yahoo! Maps" and "MapQuest" that provide unsettlingly accurate street maps showing inquiring minds how to get to your house. Detailed driving directions are also available.

Though businesses probably value such a listing, many people don't. Activated two years ago without fanfare, Google's PhoneBook feature isn't promoted on the powerful search engine's sparse home page. But over the past month, since a look-here posting was distributed widely on newsgroups ranging from alt.talk.grandparents to misc.consumers, this pry-as-you-might tool has stirred up online privacy concerns and worries about facilitating stalkers and nut cases.

"I personally don't want any Tom, Dick or Harry having a direct map to my house," read the warning post. Another called it "creepy."

A Google spokesman says the company has seen "more concern recently" about the feature but adds, "We haven't received a ton of complaints."

Not that your personal data isn't already available elsewhere. Unless your phone number is unlisted, your name and address are in old-fashioned telephone books -- though without a map pinpointing where you live.

More than a dozen online directories, such as Anywho.com, Switchboard.com and Whitepages.com, also enable reverse look-up of phone numbers -- some of them with mapping links.

But the popular Google makes tracking the who and where of a phone number more easily accessible. As a poster on alt.newlyweds protested: "Basically it looks like a waaaaay too handy reverse-look-up feature."

Which is the point, says the Google spokesman: "Google's goal is to organize and make accessible the world's information on the Web. People need to realize this information is on the Web."

Google offers what most of the other reverse directories don't -- the option to remove your listing.

But that option isn't displayed in flashing neon or found anywhere on the page revealing your information.

Here's the trick: Click on the small telephone icon next to your name. That brings up a page of PhoneBook instructions and a link at the end for removing residential or business phone numbers and addresses from the listings. That link connects to an online form. Fill it out and click the submit button (businesses must mail in a signed request on letterhead to Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters). In seconds, Google will confirm it has received your removal request and tell you the process takes "approximately 48 hours."

But it doesn't always work, at least not that fast. Seventeen days after I submitted a request, my information still was popping up in seconds.

"We're doing everything we can to make sure we respond to those as soon as possible," says the spokesman of removal requests. "We very much respect and appreciate user privacy."

Update on ID Theft

The nation's credit reporting companies -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- this month have simplified how identity-theft victims can notify them about the crime. No longer must victims endure the hassle of calling each bureau separately. Now, one toll-free call to any of the credit bureaus' fraud departments alerts all three, and within 24 hours, each bureau attaches a fraud alert on the victim's credit file, opts the victim out of all preapproved offers of credit or insurance for two years, and mails the victim a copy of his or her credit file.

Got a consumer complaint? Question? E-mail details to oldenburgd@washpost.com or write Don Oldenburg, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.