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TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

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Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#121

Post by unmole »

inglor wrote: post #10
fareesh wrote: post #4

When you install the app they steal your contact list and populate their database that way. Most people are unaware of this, or don't care since we are a third world country and privacy is seen as a first world problem. The vast majority of thinking here is not very sophisticated about these types of topics. Only a very tiny fraction of the total population is averse to sharing personal information like phone numbers…

My wife installed TrueCaller on her phone. She is technical but not a developer. I asked if she knows they steal your contact list and spy on you and her answer was “so? It’s just phone numbers and names and they need to get the data somewhere as they are providing the service for free” I live in a developed country and we have a high standard of living. Giving this anecdote to illustrate many people genuinely don’t…

I'm old enough to remember telephone directories. Phone companies would publish listings of name, phone numbers and addresses of everyone who had a phone.

Fun fact: Elector rolls are public record. Your address is already out in the open.

> Giving this anecdote to illustrate many people genuinely don’t see TrueCaller’s spying as a big deal.

That's because it makes no material difference to them.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#122

Post by unmole »

edgyquant wrote: post #112
Pxtl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India has a huge problem with spam / robo callers That's everywhere, not just India.

You’re playing coy, India is a source of a huge number of the worlds phone scams. With Brazil being the “most spammed.” As a slightly related caveat, with how frustrating the scammers are for me in the Us I can only imagine Brazil. Their phones must ring 24/7.

And do you think Truecaller has anything to do with that?

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#123

Post by ehPReth »

unmole wrote: post #121
inglor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife installed TrueCaller on her phone. She is technical but not a developer. I asked if she knows they steal your contact list and spy on you and her answer was “so? It’s just phone numbers and names and they need to get the data somewhere as they are providing the service for free” I live in a developed country and we have a high standard of living. Giving this anecdote to illustrate many people genuinely don’t…

I'm old enough to remember telephone directories. Phone companies would publish listings of name, phone numbers and addresses of everyone who had a phone. Fun fact: Elector rolls are public record. Your address is already out in the open. > Giving this anecdote to illustrate many people genuinely don’t see TrueCaller’s spying as a big deal. That's because it makes no material difference to them.

me too! I'm glad it's no longer the case though personally, if you've ditched "land lines" (at least in Canada?)

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#124

Post by fareesh »

drieddust wrote: post #119
fareesh wrote: post #4

When you install the app they steal your contact list and populate their database that way. Most people are unaware of this, or don't care since we are a third world country and privacy is seen as a first world problem. The vast majority of thinking here is not very sophisticated about these types of topics. Only a very tiny fraction of the total population is averse to sharing personal information like phone numbers…

It doesn't matter that you have 0 contacts. They will still be able to map you through other people's contact list.

I'm fine with having my number listed. I don't want to be the person that includes some other individuals number to them.

I also want to minimize their information about my network.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#125

Post by vmception »

lelandfe wrote: post #37
inglor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife installed TrueCaller on her phone. She is technical but not a developer. I asked if she knows they steal your contact list and spy on you and her answer was “so? It’s just phone numbers and names and they need to get the data somewhere as they are providing the service for free” I live in a developed country and we have a high standard of living. Giving this anecdote to illustrate many people genuinely don’t…

It's worth noting that Instagram does this too, under the guise of "Find Your Friends." When you sign up for a new account, they aggressively prompt you to sync your contacts list with the app, and will continually prompt you in the future if you choose not to. Nearly all of my friends have this enabled. This is not a one-time sync, either. It will upload future new contacts and changes. And, finally, if you manage t…

Facebook has done this periodically over the years as well. So I'm not surprised they ported that feature over or independently evolved to it on Instagram. I had caught on to the concept of breaking the social graph by using a virgin email and never putting in a phone number not even for 2-factor even once. But then there is a great risk that they flag you for "spam" within days or minutes!

Honestly, Apple needs to get in front of this on iOS just like they've done partially with Location data, Photos/Videos, and data brokering. They need to let you select shareable contacts. Kind of like the Circles that Google Wave had. Instead of letting apps force you into an all or nothing approach.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#126

Post by paranoidrobot »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #109
signal11 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> see how popular dual sim phones are Having multiple SIMs in India will go away, or at least become something only the rich have, it's only a matter of time. This is because having that second SIM is no longer cost-free. Multiple SIMs in India were a side-effect of it being near-free to have a prepaid SIM to receive calls. This was subsidized by high calling charges (calling from one part of India to another was exp…

Coincidentally, the US is also down to 3 mobile networks. I wonder what the percentiles is for number of networks in populous and large countries. Perhaps 3 networks is the number of maximum economically viable long term networks due to the enormously high cost of installing all the fiber and cell station infrastructure across the country.

Another data point: Australia basically only has 3 nation-wide mobile networks.

They're broadly compatible from a handset perspective - sometimes there's better coverage for one or the other in some area or newer tech but for most day-to-day use you can get a SIM from any carrier and expect to be able to use it any (non-network-locked) device.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#127

Post by mohanmcgeek »

fareesh wrote: post #4

When you install the app they steal your contact list and populate their database that way. Most people are unaware of this, or don't care since we are a third world country and privacy is seen as a first world problem. The vast majority of thinking here is not very sophisticated about these types of topics. Only a very tiny fraction of the total population is averse to sharing personal information like phone numbers…

> The vast majority of thinking here is not very sophisticated about these types of topics

Oh it's the classist "I'm smarter than the average person in my country" crowd again.

Why do you assume you know better? Perhaps they know what they're trading and perhaps it's worth the cost.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#128

Post by stillblue »

Truecaller was a royal PITA when it came to privacy until I figured out how to fuck with the system.

1. Anyone that has your phone number and Truecaller automatically gets you a name:phone_number entry in the Truecaller database. To get around this, I created a Truecaller account using my own phone number on a phone with zero contacts and gave myself a fake name(with my choice of subtle cuss words). This takes priority over other entries in the database. Am not sure if it works that way anymore.

2. Anytime I need to look up a number, I sign in using a dummy gmail account that I have.

There were a good few years where people looked up my number on Truecaller and it showed up a very obscene name that would shock em.

I hate Truecaller so much!

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#129

Post by RubyRidgeRandy »

mcronce wrote: post #47
RubyRidgeRandy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you make someone sign a legal document when you give them your number detailing the uses and limitations of how they can share your number? No. You don't. Once you give your info away it is not "your" info anymore. It is info about you, but you do not own it. Is it rude? sure, but not illegal.

Lots of things are amoral but not illegal. I also don't think anybody above you claimed it was illegal.

"what gives you the right..."

okay.

Re: TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India

#130

Post by marcolussetti »

rsync wrote: post #108
mikeyouse wrote: post #27

An interesting side effect of these types of companies popped up during the Navalny team's investigation of Putin's alleged yacht in Italy. They got the ship's crew manifest and then used a database like TrueCaller to check it out. The manifest had the crewmember's name and a phone number - so when you look up the number associated with 'Alexander Pechurkin', other people have him listed as "Sanya FSB" "Alexander FSO…

Anyone can do this. Ekata reverse phone is a plugin inside the twilio plugins directory (or whatever they are calling it this week). I wrote a unix command named 'lookup' which takes a single argument (phone number) and spits out "associated people" in a nice yaml output: "is_commercial": false, "associated_people": [ { "name": "Ms. Amanda Joy Lastname", "firstname": "Amanda", "middlename": "Joy", "lastname": "Lastna…

That is really cool! Is this something that's open sourced by any chance?
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