jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) (05/30/91)
***** Privacy Alert *****
A company calling itself variously "American Business Information" or
"Online Information Network" was marketing some products at the recent
Spring Comdex that should make all people concerned with personal privacy
take note.
This is Lotus Marketplace all over again.
The first "product" is a dialup service whereby for a $35 subscription
fee, $1 per minute and 0.17 per name, one can retrieve names from
databases of:
Over 10 million U.S and Canadian businesses
Over 4.5 million "high Income" families.
The brochure brags that phone numbers are contained within better than
85% of the records. The business list contains the names of all
officers of the business, a description of the business, the number
of employees, the estimated annual income, the products made/sold and
through an optional extra-cost service, a profile of each company's
yellow page ad.
Though I did not get a brochure on it, I saw advertising in the booth
for similiar consumer databases.
The second product is what they call "Lists on Disc". This is a CD-ROM
in the full spirit of Lotus Marketplace. They advertise it as a "Complete
desktop marketing system for your PC". The brochure I could get my hands
on (the booth was crowded) concerns the same database as made available
in the online service above. I saw similiar brochures for consumer
databases.
If you find this product disturbing or want to make sure you are not in
any of the databases, the contact information is:
American Business Information
5711 S. 86th Circle,
PO Box 27374
Omaha, NE 68127
402 953 4565 voice, CD-ROM
402 331 1505 Fax, CD-ROM
402 593 4593 voice, dialup service
402 331 6681 Fax, dialup service
The geek who "signed" the up-front-and-personal letter inside the cover
page of the brochure is Bill Kerrey, Vice President.
John
--
John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm)
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm)
Marietta, Ga |
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