Looks like Google Phonebook is gone. Try searching your phone number (via xxx-xxx-xxxx style) and you’ll come up empty. Even the Google Guide still has instructions on how to find that pesky caller via his Caller ID number from your phone, Google Phonebook doesn’t even come up, unless it’s a business. Google’s number works for reverse look up as does the place I use to work at when in high school. I figure most businesses will appear. But not home and personal numbers. Gone are the days of easy reverse look-up and number find via name at Google.

I figure privacy concerns is what caused Google to put a quiet close on this powerful tool as I know this feature was getting a lot of mass media play over the summer. The feature, which I had been using for over a year, was only publicly announced early this year by Google and now it seems they’ve really retarded it with little fanfare. I can find no mention of it in Google News. In fact, I found a couple articles as early as last October still mentioning the feature. So this is a real recent change. My question is, when did it happen and what’s the official word?

Ugh, I’ll miss this feature as I really liked it. Bummer.

2 Responses to “Where’s Google Phonebook?”

1. Bob Says:
   November 20th, 2005 at 17:37

   Weird, it still works in Illinois …of course, I put a slash after the area code, not a dash.

2. Sven Says:
   November 21st, 2005 at 12:02

   Still doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s a California thing, then. Might have something to do with the guns.