Sorry, Right Number

What could be more useful for, say, an insurance salesman or an executive recruiter than a major corporation's internal telephone book, complete with direct-dial access and perhaps even everyone's home number? Manhattan Businessman Steven Olsen, 24, thinks there may be gold in them thar numbers. In November his Corporate Information Services will begin selling the directories of 250 companies as a package.

The prospective sale of such in-house information upsets some firms. Said Robert Stovall, director of investment policy for the Wall Street firm Dean Witter Reynolds, whose directory will probably be offered: "It's an invitation to subject our employees to unwanted solicitations. The book wasn't prepared for some parasite to grab it and sell it." Dean Witter considers its directory to be proprietary information, and may copyright it to protect it further. Bank of America already did that last year to stop CIS from selling the bank's phone book for $60.

The company intends to press ahead anyway. "It's what the system demands," says Chairman Sheldon Copeland. But while CIS busies itself getting other people's phone numbers, it protects itself against prying by having an unlisted number of its own.