Privacy: Unlist yourself from Truecaller

If you think the world of smartphones is any safer to tread without care, I would like to remind you the fact that terms like "internet never forgets" and "world wild web" apply to the internet whether you use it from a personal computer or a smartphone.

Truecaller is a mobile app available on google play, iOS and several other market places that uses a crowd sourced telephone directory to tell you the names of people who call you even if they are not in your phonebook. The company claims to 'partly' gather its data from public sources and partly 'crowdsources' it. The latter is, however, incorrect to the extent of being misguiding at best and fraudulent at worst.

Upon investigating the app and its modus operandi, it is obviously and blatantly clear that the app harvests the data (names, numbers and other information; all linked) from the phonebooks of the users who have installed the application. I verified this with a simple trick. I had a friend install the app, and then a second person (without the app installed - infact without a smartphone) called a third phone which already had the app installed to see what information the app would display. The name on the third phone's truecaller app appeared exactly with the company prefix and nickname that was saved as on the first person's phone. This clearly showed that the app had uploaded his complete phonebook to its database under the pretext of the "necessary" permissions it requires to install the app and now displays the phone numbers and names of all his contacts to anyone in the world who has the app installed even though all those people never opted for such. This is clearly a breach of privacy.

To further verify this, please see this blog post on the same matter and this Quora thread that shows how many people this fact has made unhappy.

Are you on their database? If any one of the hundreds of your contacts including your friends, colleagues or the cable guy uses Truecaller to avail their database, your number has been harvested onto it via their phonebook.

Now the question is how to get yourself rid of this privacy issue and remove yourself from the Truecaller data base in order to keep your information safe including telling your name to simply anyone who has your number? To unlist yourself, the Truecaller website provides an unlist option. You can go to their unlist page and remove your number from their database by entering your number in the following format: +923001234567

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Changing your Google Apps primary domain on your free legacy account

Note: This is a shared article - all credits go to Jen who first published it at: Swapping your Google Apps primary domain to your secondary domain (for dummies). I have tried it at two Google App accounts and it worked like a charm.

I know, I know, most of you are reading this and thinking, WTF? WTveryF are you talking about now? And that’s fair, this is a little out there, even for me. But I’ve just spent the better part of today trying to change the domain of my free Google Apps account, and now that I’ve made it happen, I feel I should share.
I am one of those lucky few who signed up for a free Google Apps account way back when there was such a thing, but somewhere along the line my domain changed. There’s a type A coder in my head, and she’s mostly ridiculed and pushed around by the rest of the gals upstairs, but she really likes things to be nice and orderly, so today she’s had a go at being in charge.

If I haven’t lost you yet, it may be because you CARE about the outcome! Perhaps you chanced upon my blog in a desperate attempt to change your OWN primary domain! Well then, my friend, I shall get right to it! And I’m going to make it SUPER easy:

* A note! As commentator have kindly pointed out, this method only allows you to have ONE DOMAIN and keep your free account. You can have a bunch of aliases too, but ONLY ONE DOMAIN. Sorry, those are the Googley Rules for free accounts now.

Legacy Google Apps Users:

1. If you’re lucky enough to have a FREE FREE FREE account, you need to upgrade to the free 30 day enterprise trial. Don’t forget to downgrade before the 30 days are up, or you’ll lose your FREE FREE FREE account!!!
2. You can upgrade from the Admin page of your Google Apps account. Seriously, let me help you, log in here: https://www.google.com/work/apps/business/

Adding a Secondary Domain:

1. Righto, so you’ve upgraded to a paid account (free for 30 days) – if you have a paid account, you’re already on track. Go back to the admin console, and click on ‘Domains’. If you can’t see ‘Domains’, click on ‘more controls’ at the bottom of the page. Okay, fine, just click here: https://admin.google.com/AdminHome?fral=1#Domains:
2. Click on the add a domain or alias button, and then add another domain. Don’t add an alias, okay, if you were happy with an alias you wouldn’t have searched out this post.
3. Follow Google’s verification steps.

Swapping your Primary and Secondary Domains:

1. Go here: https://developers.google.com/admin-sdk/directory/v1/reference/customers/update
2. You’re in customer update now, click on Try It Now (it’s in blue).
3. Make sure you’re logged into your relevant Google account (you should see your mail address in the top right corner).
4. Next to customerKey type: my_customer
5. Next to fields type: customerDomain
6. Click next to ‘Request Body’, and in the –add a property– drop-down that appears, choose: customerDomain
7. The following will magically appear: “customerDomain”:
8. Type your secondary domain in the box next to “customerDomain”: (leave out the www. bit, just type in yourdomainname.com)
9. Click Authorise and Execute
10. Your secondary domain is now your primary domain!

Legacy Users

1. Downgrade your account if you don’t want to lose your FREE FREE FREE account!!!
2. You need to remove your secondary domain (what used to be your primary domain) first. Go here to delete it: https://admin.google.com/AdminHome?fral=1#Domains:
3. Once you’ve deleted your secondary domain, click on billing in the Admin console, and in the drop-down next to Google Apps for Work, click cancel subscription.
4. Choose the downgrade account option.
5. Submit.

That is all.
Ja, I know, that was a lot. But a lot less than the four hours I’ve spent figuring it out.

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