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Ebay Suspends Phone Number Sales
wellingt writes "According to the
Jackson Sun, the attention brought by the sale of Jenny's famous 867-5309 has led Ebay to evaluate whether or not phone numbers are the property of their owner, and whether they can be sold. Verizon has made the claim otherwise."
Yes, you do not "own" the number, but what's different here than all the auctions for domain names? You don't "own" the domain - you lease it from the registrars/ICANN/whatever. The phone companies let you transfer phone numbers just like you can transfer a domain, so what's the difference?
/.'d than they'd make in commission.
Maybe eBay just realized they're losing more in bandwidth charges from being
And they're one of the few remaining lions of the dot-com boom to still be around, and still be in the black. Hmm.
Well, it's already slow, but yes, why shouldn't phone numbers be salable? They're a part of you; you give out your phone number, when people call they expect to get you. So they're property, at least to a degree, and you can definitely sell property. What's the problem here?
While I think people are clearly renting the phone numbers (if you don't pay the phone company, they take it away and can re-issue it), it seems you own the rights to use that number while paying for it. So, that people can sell "the right to use the number while paying for it" seems fair enough.
On the other hand, if we look at phone numbers in the same light as domain names (e.g. identifiers to get a query to a place that information can be retrieved), a whole new can of worms is opened. People say they own a domain name, but it may be more like renting than owning outright. Same as with phone numbers. If you don't pay the fee every year, it is taken away and can be re-issued to someone else.
The only thing that throws the analogy is that there are certain numbers "given" to the phone companies, if I understand correctly, whereas domains, the company has no claim to the letters.
Someone with deeper telecomm operations experience should be able to answer this, but given that we have cell number portability, do the numbers belong to *anyone* other than NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administration)?
A related question for your hard-core telcomm people, since portability presumes any number can go anywhere, how do carriers assign new numbers to new devices? What pool do they come from? And what happens when service is terminated -- where do those numbers go?
My *guess* is that NANPA assigns NXX blocks (prefix/exchanges) to carriers, who then assign them to end nodes. Portability simply means that when someone wants to move to another carrier, the ported number gets put into an exception database someplace that is shared among carriers. Numbers not in the exception database are routed to whoever was assigned the NXX block originally. When service ends for a number, an exception database entry is removed if it exists, and the number "returns" to the NXX block assignee it originated from.
All of that is moot, though, if number portability means ALL numbers are in an exception database and number assignments simply happen in a queue from this master number database, and NANPA no longer assigns NXX blocks to carriers this way.
If this is true, then it seems fair game for me to re-assign my number to anyone else since only NANPA would have any claim on it. If the other assertion is true (NXX assignments to carriers, with an exception database and return-to-assignment on release), then Verizon or other carriers may have a legit beef, especially if they have to buy NXX blocks from NANPA or pay fees for them.
i ebay'd off my ICQ number (1028XX) a few years ago for a joke and someone paid me $40 for it - i believe the numbers started at 100000 so it was quite an early one.
a buddy of mine wrote a song with HIS telephone number in it. then he would sing it out at club and other places hoping chicks would call him.
i found the whole endevor quite humorous
When I recently ported my mobile number, the salesman made me verify that I still lived within the region associated with the area code. I began to wonder when the area code/number system will be deemed outdated. It is still beneficial for determining local vs. long distance calls for land lines but, as more people move to mobile service with unlimited long distance, it seems to lose its relevance. I'd rather keep my number if I moved to a new state so that people would still know how to reach me than get a new number that identified my geography. I would think that the current reliance on area codes has more to do with mobile switching technology than customer demand. I wonder if the balance of interests between phone companies and their customers will tip again in the next few years, leading to a a "national number portability" law that mirrors the recent "local number portability" law.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
I dont see how this is any different than people selling EQ characters/eqipment or Magic The Gathering Online product on eBay.
TECHNICALLY in the TOS it explicitly states that the users DO NOT OWN THE DIGITAL CONTENT. And that they just are given the rigts to use it.
I think eBay just got all butt hurt because of all the publicity the auction was getting. I'm sure if my Entire Playset of 8th Edition Wrath of Gods for MTGO on eBay was on the 8 o'clock news, Wizards of the Coast would be stepping in as well.
Just my $0.02
They have been all along. This is the concept of a "golden" number, the ability to request your number's last four digits so you're sure it spells the word you want it to. The phone company charges a monthly fee for this service... however, if the word you want has already been randomly assigned in all the exchanges local to you, you're just plain out of luck.
Also to note, most "golden" numbers are in the toll free, pay service, or choke switch ranges where the golden number service is included in the main definition of the service. However, toll free and pay services are costly phone services to operate, and very
The right to transfer your golden number? Nope. What you have to do is transfer the legal entity that owns the golden number... usually that means creating a spinoff company that inherits the phone service as one of its "obligations", and then sell that company. Thing is, businesses can create spinoff companies... people can't create a spinoff of themselves, kids don't count.
Wow look at this (I'm the parent poster): Ebay auction
I asked them about it years ago, and someone from Blizzard said that there are some things they "just won't comment on."
So while they probably don't approve, they aren't all up in arms about it like Sony was over EQ.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
So, all you need is ONE cooperative provider, and this becomes moot. Infact, there might be a niche for a provider who doesn't even provide phone service: just ownership transference:
1) transfer yourself, with phone num, to borgizon for a fee to verizon
2) borgizon lets you sell it to me
3) I transfer back to verizon, for another fee
As far as verizon is concerned, no number was sold.
My parents have had a local number that ends in "2020" since the mid 70s. Many optometrists (sp?) in town offered to buy the phone number from them. My parents refused though.
It can be done.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Not in sweden. As long as you bought in good faith, you're clear. I was suprised that the same holds in the US. Argunng that a $50 gold watch was bought in good faith is harder, tho
Ironically enough an auction is the *only* place you can sell stolen property.
Auctions exist partly for that reason. That's why in order to have an auction it must be publically advertised and the goods displayed *before* the day of the sale.
If property had been auctioned in this way it was deemed to be un-stolen.
At least in the UK anyway.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Verizon seems to be saying corporations have the right to buy and sell phone numbers but regular folks don't. It figures, it's just more of the same crap we get all the time.
In sweden the law is actually on the clueless buyers side. As long as I have paid a "reasonable" amount for the object in question, and I had no reason to believe it was stolen property, I am in the clear. This means that I will be commiting a crime if I take back, let's say, my previously stolen bicycle that I miraculously find on the street. Things like this has happened, where the rightful owner has been apprehended. It may sound weird at first, but think about it from everybodys perspective. The net gain (smallest net loss?) is the best in the swedish scenario IMO.
Just by transferring it, the reason Verizon doesn't want to say you own it and can sell it is because company X can buy up all said numbers then have a middleman monopoly. The telco is doing a good thing here techncally.
1888 Franklin St.
Link where Tommy Heath mentions it in passing. Unfortunately, the Buffalo Snooze article from way back then isn't available online, but I've seen it nonetheless. I guess you could hit the microfilm if you like ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
This has nothing to do with number portability between carriers. It has to do with the ability to transfer service [contract] between two parties or customers.
AT&T wireless, many baby bells, and possibly many others actively advertize that instead of simply canceling your service with them, you could give it or transfer the service and the associated phone number to someone else.
Now, It's none of their business what kind of arrangement I will make with someone else to transfer the service whether it's a roommate, a friend that needs a cell phone or whatever. They cannot tell people what to do outside the scope of their contract. To quote BellSouth from the article:
"What two parties do between themselves is between them," she said. "We provide phone service."
Ok, here's the easy way around it. You don't sell the number on ebay, you sell the right to have to current "owner" add your name to the account. Instead of it being "bob's number" is becomes "bob and joe's number". On day two, bob takes his name off of the policy and the number is now solely joe's number.
At that point, bob is no longer selling the number, which may or may not be bob's to sell. Bob is instead selling a service. The phone company couldn't step in and stop that even if they wanted to, could they?
This reminds me of the legal 'problem' of blackmail which I read up on recently. Blackmail is generally (1) asking someone for money so that you (2) won't disclose certain information. Taken alone, both parts of the transaction are legal, but, put together, they are illegal. Apparently, this is something that legal scholars wrestle with from time to time to try and make sense of it within the greater legal framework of US jurisprudence.
Your analogy of sex for sale is on point. In both the sale of sex and the sale of a telephone number, the parties are freely and willingly exchanging things of value. In the blackmail problem, a first party gets money in exchange for not doing something to hurt a second party. In this case, the nondisclosure of information is presumably not of any value except to the second party.
As I'm sure others have said, the transferability of phone numbers lies in the rights of the number holder. If the company allows them to transfer the number to another, well, then they should be able to do it by sale. If the company reserves this right, however, then the holder can't do it whether for free or for money.
If you bought stolen property from those outlets then should it be discovered it would be taken from you without returning your money.
Whereas if you bought it from an auction it remains your property, the loser having not shown due dilegence in recovering the item.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Why not sell something like a pencil or paperclip for $$$BIG$$$ and give the phone number away for free? In fact, why don't prositutes do that. Take them out to dinner and they'll fuck you. Seems legal (immoral, of course) to me. Hmm...
My other car is first.