Perhaps providing a cell # weeds out bots? Most real people have a cell# or two. Bots? Not so much.
“Perhaps providing a cell # weeds out bots? Most real people have a cell# or two. Bots? Not so much.”
As a developer I fully understand their supposed justification for it. But here is how it works. It is very easy to make a website and account very secure without a phone number or multi-factor authentication. It has been done for years now if done right. Both are a scam to collect data.
First, ALL machine bot access can be blocked right out of the gate across the board with simple common bot tools. So these are no longer an issue. What is an issue are real people actually doing the labor to physically register and access.
Real people can acquire and use both disposable email addresses AND disposable phone numbers, so requiring a phone number for registration is still ineffective. Most websites now use physical device detection.
Device detection and confirmation of a user’s devices is very effective and does not require a phone number. The difference is, a phone number can connect to private information of real billing name, address, and track you in real time through your carrier.
So far domains and carriers are bound by law to not share any private information connected to just a device number, but they can with phone numbers. In fact they can sell them. So the phone number requirement is also an insecure data collection scam in it’s self.
Personally I never use anything that asks for a phone number or detects devices, Not even banking apps. There will always be that day when ANY system anywhere is hacked. I am not too lazy to go bank in person.