Because it's likely one of the most memorable numbers in history at this point, as it's been immortalized by pop music.[1] 1: [this video] see 50 seconds in or so for the chorus...
It's from the chorus of a song ("867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone): [this video] On a side note, the phone system has a reserved number range (555-XXXX) for fictitious numbers for TV/movies/etc. to use. This song didn't use that but instead used a real number. When the song came out in 1981, people who had this number got so many phone calls they had to change their number. I'm not sure, but phone companies may have retired the number because it has become impractical to use. See: [link]
For anyone not getting the cultural reference, it's due to a 40 year old pop song that used that phone number (as one belonging to a Jenny to be called "for a good time"). [this video] In the overwhelming majority of US television and movies, onscreen phone numbers are of the form 555-xxxx to prevent clashes with those telecoms actually hand out. However, numbers of the form 867-xxxx are perfectly valid; and when Brown University made the mistake of handing out 867-5309 to an unfortunate dorm room around 1999 or so, those people were deluged with phone calls asking for Jenny.
Explains cultural reference to 40 year old pop song.
Those of you familiar with this song: [this video] may or may not know that it is pretty universally applicable as a phone lookup for most rewards cards. Just prefix with a popular area code, e.g. 415 (Bay Area) or 212 (NYC). Naturally, you won't get any of the rewards, but it does protect your privacy, and with some annoying retailers, still gets you the member discount.
when you need a phone number for the discount at CVS or Safeway, use your local area code followed by 867-5309. (in case you've never heard the song, listen once, then remember... [this video] ) there is always someone who has used this number for an account You get your discount, they get your points, and the shopping analytics company gets noise. win/win/win Sometimes more than one person has used this number. If they ask you "which one" or "what's the name", just say "the first one" or "Jenny Song", which are popular options for the account.
The nature of the problem you are describing (private companies having a more reliable unique ID to correlate data than phone number) seems incrementally worse than what we have today. In practice, most people rarely, if ever, change their phone number. I don't like that companies demand my phone number to get cheaper groceries, but in practice I just type in "(local area code) 867-5309" [1] into whatever terminal is asking for my phone number and get the discount 100% of the time. The consequences of the problem the proposal is trying to address seem larger to me. Currently, you can be denied access to capital and even basic financial services because identity management has been outsourced to unreliable third parties with no incentive to do a better job. [1] Sorry Jenny [this video]
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