They usually offer a choice between a text or an automated call.
I’m extremely protective about my cell number. I have caller ID blocked and only give my number to good friends. When my phone rings, I know it will be someone I know.
All that aside, I’ve given Google my number. They’re cool.
I was glad that Google finally wised up and stopped asking. If someone says no every single time you ask, they probably aren’t willing to give it to you. Yahoo hasn’t stopped asking, and now requires it to set up an account. I actually had a huge rant against Gmail for a while for dropping SMS support, and almost signed up for Yahoo until I realized I had to give them a phone number to even set up an account.
The landline idea is nice–but there’s not one landline per person, and most of the things I’ve seen want to text you for confirmation. YouTube was actually the first place I’d seen that offers a voice option. I’m sure that’s because they own Google Voice and thus can easily not accept those throwaway numbers.
They aren’t looking out for my best interests. The only excuse they can come up with for requiring my number is that they can help me if I lose my password or have unauthorized access. But I’ve already given them an alternative email for that purpose.
The anti-spam idea is pretty much all that makes sense. Hence why YouTube requires a number to go over 15 minutes. But that only works if they are limiting you to one account per number. And that’s not how I use email.
Google hasn’t stopped asking me, and I’ve said “no” consistently.
Guess you get what you pay for there guy.:rolleyes:
What if Yahoo is having a party and they realize at the last minute that they forgot to ask you, so they go to call you with directions and a request to pick up a couple bags of ice on your way? What then?
I’m worried yahoo will order 20 pizzas and send them to my house.
That’s not what the OP is complaining about though, he seems to think Yahoo will use the phone number for some nefarious marketing purpose.
Anyway, if you’re afraid that Yahoo might get hacked, then certainly don’t maintain 4 email accounts with them. Between those 4 accounts I’m guessing there’s a lot more personal info than a phone number.
Security folks will tell you that out-of-band password recovery is much more secure than using an alternate email address. If your computer/network is compromised, sending password/reset info to another email address can very well make the problem worse. On the other hand, it’s much less likely that your phone AND your computer/network have been compromised.
I can agree with this. They probably shouldn’t require it, but I guess they think that’s the best way to avoid future security and PR headaches.
Well, pit them for that then. Apparently at one time you liked their service enough that you created 4 accounts with them. But now they’re struggling and doing what they think they need to survive, and it’s certainly your right to think they suck because of that. But pitting them for the phone number thing is silly. I’ll eat my hat if it turns out they do use it for some marketing purpose.
If it bothers you that much, use a google voice number. This is exactly the sort of thing that was designed for. Of course, one day if/when google decides to start charging for this service, I guess we’ll see another round of pittings.
Also, the other thing about alternate email recovery is that a lot of people think they’re being extremely clever by having Email B be the recovery from Email A and Email A be the recovery of Email B.
Now, some hacker breaks into Email B and sees that the recovery address is Email A. They send a “forgot my password” request to Email A which dutifully sends the recovery info to Email B and now the hacker has two email accounts that you will never ever be able to recover ever again.
Seriously, don’t do this!
That is what I think. When I last had a land-line, I would get about five or six phone calls every day. About one out of every 30 of those calls was a call from someone I actually was willing to talk to. That’s with my number registered with both state and national no-call lists. I’ve no interest in that happening to my cell.
I don’t see any reason to trust that Yahoo won’t sell or share my number, at some point. When they get broke enough, or when they get sleazy enough, or when they think it’s best business practice.
This is what happens when you put a skirt in charge of things. Now all she does all day is drink wine coolers and troll Yahoo accounts for guys’ numbers. Pathetic really.
just stopping by to point out that I just paid up for another year at SDMB, and they required a phone number. I tried skipping it, but I couldn’t go forward. I ended up just making one up. I can’t imagine anything important enough that I just have to get a phone call from Cecil.
This. There are three main reasons email providers want your number:
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Recovery, in the event that your account is compromised.
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Limiting bogus accounts. A phone number gives them higher confidence yours is a real account, and not stockpiled by spammers.
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Two factor auth. If someone tries to log in from a suspicious location, they can text you a confirmation code.
Those are all good things that benefit the owner of the account. And they can’t reliably be achieved with a secondary email address (if you’ve lost one password, chances are even higher that you’ve lost the password to your secondary account too).
And if I don’t own a cell phone? Then what? I can’t use Yahoo mail?
Most landlines were probably publicly listed at one point, so if that’s the case it was freely available for telemarketers to have put into their databases ages ago and have sold and re-sold to other telemarketers over the years. And we all know the do-not-call registries are often ignored by the telemarketers.
Call me naive, but I really do doubt that Yahoo would blatantly renege on what they explicitly say they won’t do with the mobile number. And in any case, like I said, you can always use a google voice number, which is ideal for precisely this purpose. Then you can finally just give Yahoo a number once and for all and their kitties don’t have to die a horrible death from afar.
Was it the SDMB, or the payment processor, PayPal? I just re-upped last week and as far as I can remember, the SDMB itself doesn’t ask for anything - you just go through to PayPal and pay and come back to the SDMB.
PayPal needs your phone number like any credit card processor does.
Many of us have different free e-mail accounts for different classes of correspondents. Where I live, SIM cards are available for 50 cents or so – why not have throwaway SIMs to go with the throwaway e-mail accounts?
That may make sense in theory, but not in practice. First off, it assumes that I save the password to my security email account in the clear somewhere on my computer. And that they have gotten through any security I have set up on said computer.
Second, and more importantly, I’m going to be logged in to my main email address on my phone. It’s kinda a necessity with the way smartphones work these days. And between my laptop and my phone, which am I most likely to lose?
Not that they could tell that there was any fraudulent activity if I get compromised on my own equipment. The way such activity is detected is that it comes from an unusual location. And this makes sense–that is the much, much more likely way my account would be compromised. Getting physical access is a lot more work.
The only way to protect your equipment from being compromised is to directly protect your equipment from being compromised, both physically and with encryption. None of this other stuff actually helps in that situation. And outside that situation, an alternate email works just as well.
(Yes, even for two factor authentication. You might say that using a phone would be more convenient, but that depends on the circumstance. Which is probably why it’s always optional.)
I don’t have a paypal account, but it probably was on the payment page. Anyway, I made up a number and it worked
Regardless of your relationship with PayPal, they are still the payment processor for the SDMB. They require a phone number like any other payment processor. You did not give your phone number to “Cecil.”
Interesting that you were cool with providing a way to charge you money, but you were scared that they might have the ability to call you.