Yes, the Public Directory is safe for personal contacts - just make sure to select 'Individual' as the category. There is no way for anyone to actively search or access the Directory at this time. If we do release this feature in the future, more details will follow.

The Public Directory is meant to clear the confusion of who called, if that caller does not currently exist in your address book.

An example for an Individual case:

• YouMailer Jenny adds boyfriend Mack to the Public Directory as an Individual.
• Jim got new phone, couldn't import his contacts over, and joins YouMail -- who happens to be good friends with Jenny and Mack.
• Mack calls Jim and leaves him a voicemail saying "call me back". 
• Unfortunately, Jim's phone has no address book. 
• With regular voicemail, Jim would have to send that embarrassing txt or waste time with the call back and ask "who is this?"
• Since Jim has YouMail, no worries, he knows it's Mack.

An example for a non-Individual case:

• YouMailer Jenny gets called by Telemarketer 
• Telemarketer uses the same 800# with every call but has no caller-id
• Jenny adds Telemarketer and his phone number to the Public Directory, while marking it as Spam
• Telemarketer tries to call YouMailer Kevin
• Kevin lets it go to voicemail because it's a 800# with no caller-id
• YouMail tells Kevin the 800# belongs to Telemarketer and has been marked as Spam by another YouMail user
• Kevin confirms Telemarketer is spam and decides to Ditch him
• Over time, Telemarketers will be marked as Spam and YouMail users won't have to waste their time