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Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom]

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Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:

>>I looked up my optometrist in 411.com today, but it showed the wrong 
>>number: the listing was for another optical shop that she hasn't worked 
>>at in years.

>>Where does 411.com get its updates from? Is there an update process that 
>>covers all or most of the directory sites? I'd like to help my OD fix 
>>her listing, but I don't want to tell her to update ten sites if I can 
>>point her to one.

>411.com, address.com, and phonenumber.com are all whitepages.com. That
>whitepages.com compiles some business listings is new within the last
>year. They have a note that some business listings are from localeze.com
>and that if that's the source, it's noted in the detailed listing, but
>they don't tell you the source of other listings.

>whitepages.com used to be pretty good when the lists they consolidated all
>came from telephone directories but that hasn't been their business model
>in a few years.

>I wouldn't use the word "update" with these online databases. If they buy
>a list, they add the information, and they have no interest in checking
>if the information is out of date or never was correct. There's a difference
>between list consolidation and a useful product.

>Now, Intellius and Dun + Bradstreet, major brokers of business lists,
>make an attempt to call each business telephone number in their database
>once a year (so they claim), although I doubt they reach them all that often.
>If they do encounter bad information, they remove it.

>***** Moderator's Note *****

>Thanks for the info. Is there an update process? In other words, how
>can my eye doctor get her listing corrected?

Oops, I made an error. I didn't mean Intellius, which is a list consolidator
of information about individuals, but InfoUSA as a major source of business
listings.

whitepages.com may or may not identify the source of the listing. If the
source is identified, then she will have to track it down there. If not,
this page has a link to a form to fill out: http://www.whitepages.com/help#edit-business-listing

The trouble is that there are no true sources of listings that don't come
from listings of telephone subscribers from the phone companies themselves.
These sites all sell to each other, and you cannot stop one site that's
consolidated bad information from selling it to another site that treats it
as an original source, but then won't tell anyone using their database where
it came from.

I'd check InfoUSA http://www.expressupdateusa.com/ and dnb.com/ She'll need
to find her DUNS number to use the latter. These two are the source for
other databases but may not be the source of the whitepages.com errors.

I'd also check yellowpages.com which will tell you where the bad information
came from, if it's necessary to call them.

It's a time consuming and ultimately futile process.

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Thread

Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> - 2011-04-18 22:58 -0400
  Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2011-04-19 05:23 +0000
    Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] John Mayson <john@mayson.us> - 2011-04-19 08:51 -0500
    Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2011-04-20 05:07 +0000
      Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2011-04-20 17:40 +0000
  Re: Where does 411.com get it's updates? [telecom] Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> - 2011-04-19 10:38 -0700

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