Vinod Gupta

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Vinod Gupta

Vinod Gupta is the chairman and CEO of infoUSA (previously known as American Business Information, Inc.).

He graduated with a (BTech) from IIT Kharagpur in 1967, and MS in Agricultural Engineering and MBA from the University of Nebraska in 1972. Before starting American Business Information Inc., he worked as Marketing Research Manager in Commodore Corporation. His company aimed to provide information services to American businessmen.

He served as a member of Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (appointed by the President of the United States, Bill Clinton). He was nominated as the US Consul General to Bermuda, and the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji^{[citation needed]}. In 1992, Vinod Gupta gave $2 million to IIT Kharagpur for setting up the Vinod Gupta School of Management, and later $1 million for Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law Kharagpur^{[citation needed]}.

1 Trivia
2 Controversies
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Trivia

Vinod Gupta belongs to Rampur Maniharan, a small town near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh state. He has also set up a Polytechnic for women at this place which has greatly improved education facilities for the women there.

The Polytechnic was inaugurated by the former US President Bill Clinton.

Owner of the Opinion Research Corporation^[1] - a CNN polling partner^[2].

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Relationship with the Clintons

After Bill Clinton left the White House in January 2001, Gupta hired him as a consultant, a relationship that has continued. Clinton has been paid $3.3 million through 2007, in addition to receiving options on 100,000 shares of stock. "Corporate spending on behalf of the Clintons helped fuel a shareholder lawsuit against Gupta and 10 corporate directors," saying that such payments benefited primarily Gupta, not his corporation, and that the corporation has improperly paid for homes, cars, and a yacht for Gupta. "Gupta has a long history of giving and raising campaign money for the Clintons, and gave $1 million for the 2000 Millennium Celebration, a New Year's Party thrown by the Clintons. When he was president, Bill Clinton named Gupta to the Kennedy Center board of directors. Gupta also got to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. He gave another million to the Clinton Presidential Library."^[3]

[edit] Super Bowl Ad

SalesGenie.com, a service of infoUSA, ran a television advertisement during Super Bowl XLII. Critics complained that the advertisement, which was written by Gupta, was racially insensitive.^[4]

[edit] Sale of data lists for fraudulent telemarketing

InfoUSA was involved in a controversy in 2004 centered around the sale of data lists to a third party which were used by fraudulent telemarketers.

Supposedly, InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “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.” A subsequent press release denied these allegations[2], and the State of Iowa cleared InfoUSA of all wrong doing in their investigation. ^[5]