For more than 30 years, Evan Conklin has practiced plumbing in the Seattle area fixing broken water heaters, leaky faucets and malfunctioning toilets. And during those three decades, Conklin has seen a lot of crap in the business world. But there's been at least one constant in Conklin's ever-changing profession: his phone number.

That was until last Friday when Conklin stumbled upon HelpHive, a Seattle online directory of local service providers. Conklin couldn't believe what he saw. His business listing on HelpHive included a phone number, but it wasn't the one he'd used for the past 30 years. It was a new number generated and controlled by HelpHive, a proxy number of sorts that the Internet upstart had set up to track calls it was passing on to the plumber.

Conklin was appalled with the idea that a third-party Web site could create a new phone number for his business, thinking that it was simply a way to get between him and his customer and to eventually start charging him for leads. "They have no right to do that," said Conklin."These guys are like vampires, sitting behind laptops siphoning off business." Obviously, that's not how the founder of HelpHive sees things, arguing that they are providing a more effective way to deliver valuable leads to small business owners.

And while that may be the case for some local service providers, it wasn't so for Conklin's small plumbing business. When people tried to call the HelpHive number for Evan Conklin Plumbing & Heating last week, it didn't work.

Conklin was irate, posting a 754-word diatribe in the comments of a recent TechFlash story about HelpHive. He's followed that up with additional action, registering the domain HelpHive.info to express his opinions and filing complaints with the Washington State Attorney General and Better Business Bureau. Contemplating legal action, Conklin is on a mission to stop HelpHive in its tracks. He writes:

All businesses listed on this supposed consumer directory have a fake phone number substituted for the company's real phone number. This fake phone number belongs to the owners of Helphive,com. These local business listings are not placed there by the business but have been harvested from other sources. Helphive.com apparently thinks that it is OK to use any company's name and substitute the real contact information (the company phone number) with another so that they can harvest the incoming information and make money from it in various ways. If it is your misfortune to own a business listed on this site your customer has been hijacked. Helphive claims that they are giving the company listed a "free" ad or listing. Well, it is not a real benefit to any company if they are collecting data and hiding your real phone number from the public.

Conklin's missive raises an interesting point: Do businesses (or individuals for that matter) have any control over what's published or said about them on third-party directory sites? And do businesses have control over the phone numbers being represented to the public?

There are certainly plenty of online directories in existence, ranging from sites like Yelp to Angie's List to Service Magic to Judy's Book. And we've seen this issue come up before in various forms, including homeowner's who don't like Zillow.com's Zestimate for their home or local instructors who object to being included in TeachStreet's online directory.

HelpHive.com founder Karim Meghji obviously has a much different view on things. And he said the recently-launched service is bringing value to small businesses, driving more leads their way without the charges associated with phone books or other online directories. The way Meghji sees it, HelpHive is simply tracking that unique value that they bring to businesses as a third-party Web site. And to do that, they've set up a special phone number for each business, which assists with archiving and tracking the calls.

"Think of the phone system we use as an analog to what Google does by "redirecting" SEM links through Google servers," explains Meghji, who previously worked at RealNetworks. "That's what we do with phone calls - the homeowner does directly connect with the business - it just happens through our system."

Meghji

And Meghji notes that the service provider can choose to turn off the contact information in the directory, something they did for Conklin's plumbing business. The Internet entrepreneur -- who posted his own rebuttal to Conklin in the comments of the TechFlash story -- also noted that the calls routed through HelpHive are clearly marked with a "Welcome to HelpHive" audio message.

Overall, Meghji said he thinks they are helping small businesses, not hurting them.

HelpHive won't be for every business - if a business would prefer to write checks for advertising with no guarantee or ability to track performance, then we're probably not the right site for them. But if a business prefers a performance based model, where the ROI is measurable and your outlet for advertising is getting paid only when they get you quality referrals and jobs, then one of the requirements is a way to track, manage and report this stuff. In talking to numerous businesses, they are fatigued with the costs they are paying to "get their numbers listed" with no measurable ROI.

As to Conklin's specific problems with calls not being routed properly, Meghji said that the HelpHive system encountered an error when it interacted with the plumber's automated phone answering attendant. Meghji said they're aware of the problem and hope to have it fixed this week.

I've now read the comments from Conklin and Meghji a few times, and chatted with both of them via email and on the phone about the dispute. Both men make interesting cases, and I am left wondering where others in the tech community come down on it. (There also have to be a few lawyers out there who have an opinion on these matters).

Is this a fraudulent or unethical practice as Conklin alleges?

Or is it a valid business tactic and beneficial lead generation service for small businesses?

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