Rob Pegoraro<a href="https://robpegoraro.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rocketreach-data-dump.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><p class="">Cold-called PR pitches are <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2019/12/21/its-not-the-most-wonderful-week-of-the-year/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">a bad idea</a> that the PR industry can’t seem to let go, but the publicist who called me Tuesday morning managed to transcend the usual problems with that concept–as in, who among us even answers a call from a strange number?–by calling me at the wrong number.</p><p>No, not some other person’s digits: the actual cell number I’ve had since 2000, which I do not use that for business because I have <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2018/06/29/please-stop-asking-for-my-best-number/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">a Google Voice number</a> for that purpose (202-683-7948, if anybody reading this needs a reminder) that rings through to all of my devices and lets me preserve a shred of <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2014/05/24/mail-merge-work-home-and-other-e-mail-addresses/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">work/life balance</a>. </p><p>Then the guy followed up on his voicemail by texting me at my cell number, after which he e-mailed me but had the smarts to send that message to my work address (rob@robpegoraro.com, if anybody reading this needs a a reminder). Having recognized his employer as a company I’d covered before, I wrote back with less <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/robpegoraro.com/post/3l4ecvcb2fk2e" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">anger than I’d immediately felt</a> to say that while I appreciated the outreach, I needed him to forget those digits and use my work number henceforth. </p><p>He replied apologetically five minutes later, saying his PR agency had passed on my cell number after seeing it in a database they use. I asked if he could identify that database; less than an hour later, he wrote that the agency had relied on a data broker called <a href="https://rocketreach.co/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">RocketReach</a>. </p><p>I had not heard of that company, but I’ve <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2021/06/13/weekly-output-making-your-offline-self-harder-to-find-online-mark-vena-podcast/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">written enough about data brokers</a> to know that they’re supposed to provide an opt-out. RocketReach, a Brooklyn-based firm, does just that, allowing people in its database to inspect the profile built on them and <a href="https://rocketreach.co/remove-profile" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">request its removal</a> by providing an e-mail address included in their profile.</p><p>That worked as advertised, revealing a hilariously obsolete data dump that you can see above. It included not only my cell and <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2017/06/02/porting-out-a-verizon-landline-number-part-2-my-fios-account-survives-my-vz-mail-moves/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">home</a> numbers but also my old Washington Post phone number–plus five other numbers at the Post’s 202-334 exchange. The profile clearly needed to be put out of its misery, so I helped myself to RocketReach’s remove-profile option. </p><p>I’d like to think that’s the last of this, but as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22509928/internet-security-privacy-personal-data" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">I wrote three years ago</a>, the data-broker industry is a self-licking ice cream cone. So these companies will continue to vacuum up my information from wherever, after which well-meaning publicists will think they’ve cracked the code to get my attention by using one of them. Just this morning, I had one e-mail me at my Gmail address–which is an excellent way to have your pitch vanish between all the newsletters, weekly sales and political fund-raising pleas.</p><p>The stupid thing here is that I am trying to keep my work e-mail and phone anything but private–they’re <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/contact/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">on this site</a> and in <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/robpegoraro/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">my LinkedIn profile</a>, so any Google search should reveal the correct details. And yet some people feel compelled to do things the hard way by spending money on a people-finder site, after which they only pollute their pitch by barging into my personal digital space. </p><p>If you’re reading this and work in PR, could you please not be one of those people? </p><p><a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2024/09/18/when-a-correct-phone-number-for-me-is-still-very-much-the-wrong-number/" class="" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://robpegoraro.com/2024/09/18/when-a-correct-phone-number-for-me-is-still-very-much-the-wrong-number/</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/best-number/" target="_blank">#bestNumber</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/cold-calls/" target="_blank">#coldCalls</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/data-broker/" target="_blank">#dataBroker</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/people-finder-sites/" target="_blank">#peopleFinderSites</a></p>