Craigsnumber's tagline is simple and to the point: "Listing online? Protect your privacy." And that's all there is to it. Craigsnumber is a dead simple online service that will give you a disposable phone number for conducting business online. Want to provide a phone number on your eBay auction, but don't want your real number out there forever? Just go to Craigsnumber, enter your real number and when you want the disposable number to expire (one hour, one day, or one week), and you'll be assigned a Craigsnumber (which is an ordinary phone number and extension) that will forward calls to you only until it expires. When someone calls your Craigsnumber, they'll be prompted to record a greeting before they're connected, which allows you to screen incoming calls. If you want the number to be in a particular area code, you can choose from between San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. One feature that would be nice to have is finer-grained control over expiration times. Being able to set it to 10 days or two weeks would be very welcome.

So, where's the business model? I have no idea, but it's a neat service that doesn't require any registration, another big plus for the privacy-conscious. As a big minus, however, the site doesn't appear to have any privacy policy. I've put in a query to the site's creators about that, and will update this post if they reply.

Update: The Craigsnumber folks e-mailed me to let me know that you can see the privacy policy by mousing over the asterisk next to the field where you enter your phone number. It says: "We do not sell, rent, or lease your phone number to third parties. Any companies or individuals employed by us are bound by law to protect the confidentiality of your information." Since my original post Craigsnumber has also added an FAQ that addresses privacy.

The folks at Yahoo! have added a little feature to Yahoo! Mail that recognizes addresses and phone numbers. The new features will automatically recognize and underline all phone numbers and addresses in mail messages, and easily get directions or view locations. The new feature will also allow for the ability to instantly add addresses to your address book. Google's Gmail has had this feature for a while, however they have taken a much more subtle approach by tossing a link in the corner. So with this new Yahoo Mail feature, I hereby announce the start of email wars. Challenging Google, Yahoo!, and MSN to come up with and release some additional helpful features for its users. What would you like to see added to online email applications to make your communications easier? How about some folders in Gmail? Or a notepad?

Jangl lets you communicate with anyone, without revealing your mobile phone number, or exchanging it with anyone else.

How it works is that your 10 digit phone number is masked by a Jangl ID number. It's as simple as letting someone know your easy to remember Jangl ID. No more remembering crazy 10 digit phone numbers when you don't have a pen lying around.

The Jangl service provides two way privacy, whereas both numbers on the mobile call are kept private at all times. Jangl gives users a unique 10 digit number for each relationship you have. When calling a number, the phone number that the other side will see will be the unique Jangl number that they have for you, ensuring that your privacy is secure. When you give out your Jangl ID, users visit jangl.com and enter the ID. The ID will create a special unique number that they will call you on. That person calling will only know you by that number, and you will only know that person by their unique number, allowing you to block it at anytime.

At the moment Jangl is in a closed beta, I have signed up, and will let everyone know how the service works. However, if anyone is currently using Jangl, let us know how it works in the comments.