At the root of every discussion about phone privacy is the fact that you’re often stuck having to give out your actual phone number. Once it’s out in the world, it can be bought and resold over and over again.

Ever wonder why many websites ask you for your cell phone number when it seems unnecessary to complete the sign up process? Sometimes they’ll claim it’s for “security purposes,” like Google and Facebook often do.

But don’t be fooled! Even their own policies admit that your phone number is just another piece of data that they can access and sell to every marketing/research/political/etc. firm they can get their hands on.  

In the past, we’ve examined the issues with the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry and techniques that could be used to block/mitigate the number of calls from telemarketers. In that post we stressed that consumers should attempt to keep their phone numbers private at all costs. Excessive phone calls to either your land line or cell phone can be both annoying and extremely irritating. We also wanted to see how often people used fake phone numbers and for what purposes they used the fake numbers, and the results were pretty interesting:

At the root of this “excessive calls” issue is the fact that we still give out our personal cell phone/land-line numbers. Caller ID certainly helps to screen incoming phone calls, but it does not block calls from a particular entity once and for all. Phone carriers, while they do provide some blocking protection, usually for an additional cost, fall short from blocking the many numbers that constantly try to contact you. What if there was a way that you never had to give out your phone number again? What if you could block any future calls from a specific telemarketer at the touch of a button? With MaskMe, our newest privacy product, you now have the option to give out a number that forwards to you cell phone and can be blocked/unblocked at the touch of a button. For the full effect of MaskMe, we encourage our users to do the following:

1. Get MaskMe Premium and create a Masked Phone Number.
2. Check our support page for more extensive information on where and how to use your Masked Phone Number.
3. If any business/companies/individuals have your phone number, contact them and tell them you have updated it. Then simply supply them with your masked number.
4. If they call too frequently and annoy you, simply block future calls to that number with a single click.
5. Anytime you need to give out a number in the future, just give your masked number – never reveal your actual number again.
6. Relax. Take a nap. You can do that now that you have blocked all the annoying callers!