

Ask YC: Why does 800-GOOG-411 have a listing for "prostitutes" in SF? - plusbryan

If you call 800-GOOG411 in San Francisco at least, and ask it for a "prostitute", it has an entry and responds, offering up a choice of hotels. What tech powers GOOG-411 that allows for something like this (it certainly doesn't respond to other nonsensical queries) - or did I just discover an easter egg? 
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jmpeters
Finally a business model I can believe in. Despite not having an MBA I'm going
to speculate that there may be slightly more demand for this service than for
Facebook's digital fish in an aquarium.

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jamongkad
Ha ha ha I guess so.

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cperciva
Why were you phoning up Google and asking for a prostitute?

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plusbryan
Why, what do _you_ use 411 for?

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cperciva
I haven't used 411 recently; but if I used it at all, I guarantee that my
girlfriend wouldn't approve of me using it for that purpose.

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darius
There is a tall free number to get around using 411: (800)FREE-411. It has
some commercials but it saves you a buck from not using 411. I wish I came up
with that idea...

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BrandonM
Umm... what do you think GOOG-411 is?

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zurla
the worst part is that google started making 'acquisition noises' with the
jingle guys (free 411) before goog 411 launched. google had some meetings with
them, talked about the business and learned everything they could, but i hear
the jingle guys (free 411) discovered it was all pretense, as google was
actually just doing research for their own free 411 service (goog 411) that
google was actively developing at the time.

