Just in case I haven’t sufficiently played out this theme, let me remind you that the federal government and the state Attorneys General are actively pursuing anyone they can identify who obtains or sells telephone subscriber information. [Just search PI buzz with the word telephone for all my postings.] This letter from the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce lists numerous companies from which they’ve requested detailed operational information, including customer names.

By calendar year since 2000, list the names of the top 20 customers, by revenue, for each of ARI’s data broker Web sites. With each customer listed, and for each calendar year, provide the total dollar amount paid by the customer to the data broker.

Some of the companies to which the Committee has has sent their inquiry are Richard J. Downing, owner of Piranha Investigations, Michele Yontef of Telcosecrets and Advanced Research, Inc.

Sprint Nextel filed another lawsuit seeking an injuction against yet another PI. The Sprint press release conveys their public attitude toward the practice of obtaining telephone subscriber data without the customer’s permission.

As we dig deeper into the origins of this fraud, we’ve determined that, in some cases, companies with no Internet presence whatsoever are handling the dirty work for these online operations…