tive or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory,

It was about a week ago that I thought of Randy, I'd not seen him in many years, he was once a close friend, but we fallen out of touch. I'd tried reaching him by email, but when the email was returned (bounced) I thought possibly we'd not be in contact again, then I remembered the reverse telephone directory.

Imagine my surprise when I went to Google, typed in his name and almost immediately found a phone listing. Is it possible this was him? Could it actually be this easy to find a lost friend? Well yes and no... my friend wasn't hiding, nor did he have an unlisted number, but even if he had, there is (in a database somewhere) a listing with his name and phone number.

The Internet has quite literally shrunk the world (for better and worse) and has allowed us to find people considerably easier than ever before. There are entire websites devoted to reverse phone numbers, not to mention books, private investigators and reunions on Oprah; reverse phone number lookup has become an industry onto itself.

And like any business industry, there are some companies which are good, others not so good, some which charge a fee (usually the good ones do) and others which will perform a limited search for free. But compare this to someone searching for a relative or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory, t

gine my surprise when I went to Google, typed in his name and almost immediately found a phone listing. Is it possible this was him? Could it actually be this easy to find a lost friend? Well yes and no... my friend wasn't hiding, nor did he have an unlisted number, but even if he had, there is (in a database somewhere) a listing with his name and phone number.

The Internet has quite literally shrunk the world (for better and worse) and has allowed us to find people considerably easier than ever before. There are entire websites devoted to reverse phone numbers, not to mention books, private investigators and reunions on Oprah; reverse phone number lookup has become an industry onto itself.

And like any business industry, there are some companies which are good, others not so good, some which charge a fee (usually the good ones do) and others which will perform a limited search for free. But compare this to someone searching for a relative or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory,

e) a listing with his name and phone number.

The Internet has quite literally shrunk the world (for better and worse) and has allowed us to find people considerably easier than ever before. There are entire websites devoted to reverse phone numbers, not to mention books, private investigators and reunions on Oprah; reverse phone number lookup has become an industry onto itself.

And like any business industry, there are some companies which are good, others not so good, some which charge a fee (usually the good ones do) and others which will perform a limited search for free. But compare this to someone searching for a relative or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory,

; reverse phone number lookup has become an industry onto itself.

And like any business industry, there are some companies which are good, others not so good, some which charge a fee (usually the good ones do) and others which will perform a limited search for free. But compare this to someone searching for a relative or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory,

tive or friend 20 years ago. The only recourse was to hire a private detective, possibly take out a classified ad (unlikely they'd see it) in a national newspaper, or simply give up; the reunions 20 years ago were few, and those that were successful, costly.

While there is talk of a national cell phone directory, there are also many privacy advocates (me too) who are against it. Why? Simply that a cell phone is kind of personal communicator, and usually you only tell your friends/family/business associates the number; we don't want telemarketers calling our cell phone... GAWD.

As for me, I'm glad my cell is private, I wouldn't want it posted in the white pages; and if someone wants to find me that bad, of course they can visit multiple reverse look-up sites, where for a fee, they can track most anyone. Obviously law enforcement agencies need access to these data bases to find "dead beat dads", criminals, etc., but the jury is still out about making them public; since most of us lead quiet lives and aren't interested in getting random calls from people we don't know, and then being changed for the interruption.

If you do visit these "fee based" reverse phone number sites, be cautious if they mention having access to exclusive cell phone database, those in the know say that such a database IS NOT offered to the public at any price.

The databases that are available online; known by many as the BLACK PAGES, performs searches by a number instead of name. To illustrate, simply open any phone book and you'll see a list of names in alphabetically order, next to th