The information is being sold on a Website based in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province. The site claims to have mobile phone numbers and other contact information for 910,000 executives across the country. The entire database can be owned for 2,300 yuan(US$284).

About 47,000 of the numbers belong to managers of local companies. That information can be owned for 300 yuan, according to the Website. The information included company names, addresses and postal codes.

"These are all latest statistics as off September 2005. I can promise 80 percent of the phone numbers are correct," said a female employee of the Website who answered the phone when a Shanghai Daily reporter called yesterday.

The Website offered a few phone numbers to test and Shanghai Daily found most of the information was correct.

A company owner surnamed Ma answered the phone, saying that he had received a number of calls from strangers, and hang up the phone quickly.

Chen Jun, the manager of the consulting company, expressed his anger at such harassing calls.

"They called to sell all kinds of things, and I didn't want any of it," Chen said."But I have no way to solve the problem as I have to send my name cards to different people for business. I can't change the phone numbers easily because it may make me lose contact with many clients."

He added he didn't know his number was being sold online.

Shang Jiangang, a local lawyer, said the sellers have violated the privacy of the company owners because they collected personal phone numbers for sale without agreement of the owners.

But many company owners will prefer to change phone numbers because it is too troublesome and costly to file a lawsuit, Shang said.

Website employees say they are offering a business service, not breaking the law, however.

Last year, the mobile phone numbers of many of the country's top actors and singers were sold online, forcing many celebrities to get new digits.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)