Setting the Record Straight

 

Press reports of irresponsible behavior by infoUSA relating to the activities of one of its subsidiaries are simply erroneous and damaging to the company, its shareholders, its employees and its customers.  It is time to set the record straight.

 

infoUSA was founded more than 35 years ago with $100 of seed capital with one clear objective:  to bring honesty and integrity to the direct marketing industry.  Today, the company has more than 4 million customers and was the first company in its sector to offer clear, transparent and truthful dialogue with its clients, educating them about mailing lists and how they work. 

 

infoUSA has also been at the forefront of the direct marketing industry in advocating strict privacy initiatives.  infoUSA was the first company to publicly support the Do Not Call legislation as well as the CAN-SPAM legislation and has worked to clean up an industry dragged down by bad actors.  infoUSA takes its leadership role in the industry extremely seriously and cares deeply about unethical practices and the harm they can cause. infoUSA has been and remains committed to working with all parties to set enforceable industry standards that make good social and economic sense.

Specifically relating to the Iowa situation, here are the facts:

 

 

1.         Three years ago, Walter Karl, an infoUSA subsidiary, provided documents and conducted meetings with the Iowa attorney general to assist in their investigation into a telemarketing scam.  After producing a tremendous amount of data at shareholder expense, the Iowa AG praised our cooperation in writing and this subsidiary never heard anything more about it.

 

2.         The telemarketing scam that interested the Iowa AG centered on the unscrupulous behavior of list buyers, that came to Walter Karl through its acquisition in 1998 of a small list brokerage company, JAMI Marketing. We confirmed to the AG that at one point, JAMI served customers seeking lists of individuals, including seniors as well as other groups, who were interested in sweepstakes and gaming.  In response to the Iowa investigation, Walter Karl exited this  business and the one sales representative involved in this area left the company.

 

3.         While infoUSA can not manage what a client does with the publicly available information infoUSA provides, the company has a strict policy about not selling data to companies who act illegally.  The company is a strong supporter of the DMA guidelines regarding usage and sale of databases to customers.