House Threatens Internet Sites Selling Cellphone Data
House Commerce Committee members said Fri. they sent letters demanding answers from operators of Internet sites such as phonebust.com and datafind.org that offer to sell detailed records of a person’s phone calls made on cellular, wireline or VoIP phones. The letters are the first stage of an investigation by the Commerce Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, which has subpoena power to obtain records and testimony from uncooperative witnesses.
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The move follows Wed.’s hearing, when Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) said he would soon advance legislation to outlaw such activity. The letters were sent to Steven Schwartz, dir.-First Source Information Specialists, which manages datafind.org, locatecell.com, celltolls.com and peoplesearchamerica,com sites; and Patrick Baird, dir.-PDJ Services, which manages phonebust.com. The businesses must respond to the committee by Feb. 17. “It is very disconcerting that certain online data broker companies are exploiting consumers’ personal records and selling the information to whomever pays for the records,” the letters said.
The lawmakers’ letters asked for: (1) Detailed company records, including annual gross and net revenue, the identities of top customers, descriptions of services provided, and a list of affiliated businesses and websites. (2) All methods used to acquire the information they sell online, including whether employees pose as telephone company customers to get account information for buyers, a ruse called “pretexting.” (3) The legal basis for the business. (4) Records related to inquiries by law enforcement or regulatory officials. (5) An explanation of any efforts made to get consent from consumers before selling their data or to notify them after it’s sold.
PDJ Services, which runs www.phonebust.com, was perplexed to receive the letter from the committee: “I am so beside myself it’s unbelievable,” Dir. Patrick Baird told us. The Tex.-based firm hasn’t offered cellphone records for sale since about Oct., he said, and even then they weren’t available to the general public. PDJ catered to private investigators, banks and financial institutions, insurance companies and law enforcement with the cellphone records; for law enforcement, services were provided “always on a courtesy basis and we have never charged them one penny,” Baird said. The firm worked through 3rd-party vendors that had signed agreements that they obtained records abiding by relevant state laws, he added.
“To be mentioned in the same breath as these other jokers from Florida [First Source Information Specialists] is especially upsetting to us,” Baird said, calling First Source “a couple of ex-felons who apparently had trouble with the law.” PDJ stopped offering cellphone records because “there was a lot of scrutiny about it” and media outlets tried to access “high-profile people’s names so they could sensationalize their stories,” he said. MoveOn.org managed to buy phone records of Wesley Clark, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, in one highly visible incident. PDJ has since shifted its business to “information that could be obtained through any number of public record data sources,” Baird said, which has “definitely hurt our business.”
Baird blamed election pressures for the sudden scrutiny of the cellphone record business: “Politicians are enjoying this opportunity to jump on this” and portray the business as ethically tainted. “They seem to think there’s been harm done,” but PDJ often receives thank-yous from customers “happy about us finding their child or finding people who have skipped bail” and others, he said. “It’s a good product that helps a lot of industries… To single us out -- I have no idea why that happened.”