Controversial Mobile Phone Directory Crashes

Finally it appears that the prayers of those who criticised the launch of the first ever mobile phone directory in the United Kingdom, has been answered. Many have claimed that 118800.co.uk, which boasts of being “the only directory with millions of mobile numbers” was in serious breach of privacy laws although the UK data protection watchdog thought otherwise.

However, today, the website which was launched in June 2009 appears to have crashed as their homepage declares that their service has been suspended. 118800.co.uk “holds up to 16 million mobile phone numbers in its database, obtained from market research firms and online businesses” who require customers to leave their contact details during transactions according to Yahoo news.

Although it is not yet clear what the exact reason behind the “temporary” shut down was, it appears to have been caused by the sheer volume of angry mobile phone users who are trying to get their names off the directory’s listing at the same time. Meanwhile, the current message on the website states that all such requests are still being processed and further requests will only be taken whenever their service resumes.