Loose Cannon: Into the Valley of Paranoia Rode the 600

What a time to launch a new information-compiling scheme. The data industry has been chugging along at one scandal per the week (collect ‘em all! Trade ‘em with your friends – and with J. Edgar Hoover! Oops, he’s already got a full set…) and the good folks at Zoominfo.com decide to come out with their personal lookup service.

Here’s how Zoominfo works: The site pulls online references to individuals with the same, or similar, names onto a single Web page. Anyone able to prove via a credit card, that he is John Smith is able to sign in and indicate which of the collected information on John Smith is relevant to him, and to (optionally) load up a personal biography. Zoominfo currently boasts profiles on 25 million people.

I picked one of those 25 million at random, and looked up what they had on ukulele-toting entertainer Tiny Tim.

Whose current employment, as listed by the Zoominfomaniacs, is “left-handed politician.” As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise!”

No mention in the summarized information of Tim’s 1969 marriage to Miss Vicky, despite the fact that 40 million people saw it on the Tonight Show. (You’d think one of them would have remembered.) No mention of his biggest hit, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” although Zoominfo was gracious enough to link to the sites it used to assemble this cornucopia of information.

Or, for that matter, no mention of the fact that he’s been dead for eight-and-a-half years. Hey, someone might find that detail useful…

The honor system applies when correcting data, or attributing sites found among folks with the same name. I didn’t see a hell of a lot to keep me from claiming to be a marine biologist in Vermont, or the chief administrative officer of Orlando. Which, apparently, are the occupations of two other Richard Leveys.

After a listed person has indicated which information to attribute to his or her name, Zoominfo offers a chance to upload a personal biography. At this point, the person making these modifications is asked to submit a credit card number “for verification purposes only.” And yes, they want a valid credit card: They apparently knew enough about me to know that my long-expired American Express plastic didn’t cut it.

This will, I reckon, make it difficult for Tiny Tim to log in and update his information.

If I’d presented the site with a valid credit card – something I was absolutely not about to do, even though there is no charge for the modifications – I believe I could have glommed the identity of either of the other Richard Leveys.

This lack of human review is appalling. Plugging in my own name revealed that I’m a writer at Direct magazine. No surprise there. But for the “price” of my credit card number, I could have talked about my conquest of Everest, my Pulitzer Prize, and my extensive work with lepers.

Back to the drawing board, Zoomaniacs: With the right credit card number, on your site I can be anyone I want – and that doesn’t make me happy.

To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact e-mail: rlevey@primediabusiness.com