• TechCrunch, Monday, August 20, 2007 11 AM

Google's GrandCentral, the company that promised its users "one number for life," has reneged on that promise just six weeks after being bought by the search giant. Google sent out notices to users last week giving them just eight days until their telephone numbers expired. Neither Google nor GrandCentral has made any official statement about the move.

Across the blogosphere, bloggers and their readers are expressing outrage at the search king's decision to do this with little warning and without explanation. John Battelle said the GrandCentral move contributed to the PR hit Google took for taking down Google Video and the videos its users thought they had bought for life.

TechCrunch spoke to several GrandCentral users who used the service for business. That meant maybe thousands of users would be forced to change their business cards and other listings on the Web and in paper where those numbers appear--and Google has given them just eight days to do so. Meanwhile, companies will lose untold numbers of sales.

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