Toll Free Phone Numbers to Domain Names — Comparing the
AP sheds light on using toll free numbers to capture business.
The Associated Press published a story this morning regarding firms that reserve mass quantities of toll free phone numbers, either to capture callers or sell them to businesses that might want to use them.
On the surface this is very similar to domain names. You register a domain name, capture visitors looking for something related to it, and then sell the domain name to a business that wants to use the domain.
Indeed, a number of big domainers were first attracted to toll free numbers, counting Rick Schwartz. Another firm that is big in domains is the focus of the AP piece — National A-1.
As stated by the story, a firm with similar ownership as National A-1 called PrimeTel owns 1,667,000 of the 7.87 million active 800 numbers. Most of these, as stated by the article, link to a paid sex talk hotline.
PrimeTel snaps up a many of the numbers the moment they expire. It costs less than 10 cents a month for the firm to reserve each number.
For toll free numbers there are rules against “hoarding”, although this appears to be limited to firms like PrimeTel (essentially a toll-free “registrar”) from reserving domains without a specific client use.
Another interesting thing is that the article states PrimeTel has numbers such as 1-800-Metallica and 1-800-Cadillac. Of course there’s no such thing as these toll free numbers — each number on the phone corresponds to multiple letters in the alphabet. So unlike domain names, you can’t argue that PrimeTel is infringing a trademark with any of its numbers.
