Bowing to pressure from consumers and Verizon, Washington-based information commerce company Intelius has announced that it will shut down its online cell phone directory.

The directory, which opened for business last July, purportedly contained more than 90 million phone numbers that the company said was composed of "opt-in cell phone numbers" that consumers had posted on various Web sites when asked to list contact information. The company would then charge its customers a fee of $14.95 to look up and obtain the numbers. Because the numbers within the directory were unlisted, the directory came under heavy criticism from Verizon Wireless, which issued a statement last week calling on Intelius to take the directory down.

“Trolling the Internet, using data mining techniques and simply buying lists to create a directory are actions that clearly violate a consumer’s right to privacy,” said Steve Zipperstein, Verizon Wireless’ vice president and general counsel. “Stop it… people expect their cell phone numbers to remain private.”

In addition to chastising the company, Verizon said it would consider taking legal action in order to stop Intelius from selling unlisted cell phone numbers. Days later, Intelius announced that it would pull the plug on the cell phone directory, citing “consumer feedback” as the primary reason. Liz Murray, the communications manager at Intelius, said that the company was “ahead of its time” and that “the market is still not ready” for a wireless phone directory. She did say, however, that Intelius would still be offering its Cell Phone Caller ID service, a reverse search that lets users put a number they’ve received on their cell phone into Intelius’ cell phone number database. The purpose of the service, Murray said, was to give customers “a critical tool to prevent the creation of a safe-harbor for harassers, predators, telemarketers and pranksters.”

When the company debuted its cell phone directory last year, it billed the service as a way for users to “track down people they may have lost touch with.” The company also said that it was offering consumers an “opt-out process” that would allow people with safety concerns to have their information “temporarily suppressed” from Intelius’ database.

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