lolcats – u ken not reziszt

lolcats are pretty much hilarious. If you haven’t seen them (or created one yet), i think you ought to. fer reals.

photo by Lumpy Golightly – Uploaded on May 27, 2007 (from the lolcats group on flickr)

InfoUSA and libraries

A recent article in the NY Times about the InfoUSA company selling information the information about easily swindled elderly really bothered me. Libraries are a major client of a division of this company with their subscriptions to Reference USA, the business/residential directory database. I thought that I might see some discussion of this issue in libraryland over the last few weeks, but haven’t heard a peep.

I wonder, do we just ignore this for lack of alternatives? Or are we not understanding the issue? When I brought this subject up to some of my colleagues at the library they had no idea about the things that InfoUSA is doing to support identity theft and wide-scale robbery of older folks. They held the position that the company isn’t supporting crime by selling information, the criminals are using information toward nefarious ends. In most cases, I fully support this philosophy. But not this time. This time InfoUSA is selling information specifically to folks who want to scam seniors — let me give you a little example. According to this article, they sell lists with titles such as:

• “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” — 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,”
• “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease.
• “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece.

One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”

This is especially concerning since “the number of scams aimed at older Americans is on the rise, the authorities say. In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that 11 percent of Americans over age 55 had been victims of consumer fraud. The following year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down one telemarketing ring that stole more than $1 billion, spanned seven countries and resulted in 565 arrests. Since the start of last year, federal agencies have filed lawsuits or injunctions against at least 68 telemarketing companies and individuals accused of stealing more than $622 million.”

So, what do we do about the companies we give our supporters money to? Do we care that they are unethical and potentially hazardous to our service base?