WhitePages will use Infogroup‘s consumer point-of-interest data for approximately 15 million businesses in its search-based business directory, the companies said August 11.
Jim DeRouchey, president of Infogroup Licensing, said the agreement is “multi-year” but would not be specific about the terms of the contract. WhitePages approached Infogroup last year after the database company’s user conference, and the two companies began to discuss WhitePages’ potential use of Infogroup data, he said.
“They’re an exciting partner,” said DeRouchey. “Almost everybody has used WhitePages.com at some juncture…We’ve been working with Microsoft Corp., Google and Yahoo, and our database was complementary [for WhitePages].”
He added that Infogroup is working to provide real-time data changes for clients. “Realistically, we can do this in the next 12 months,” said DeRouchey.
Omaha, Neb.-based Infogroup is also planning to give clients enhanced data, he said, although he declined to disclose a timetable for its implementation.
WhitePages said in a statement that it is “thrilled to be leveraging Infogroup’s business data to enhance our offering,” but did not provide additional comment.
WhitePages launched local business search last June. The company’s website lists Localeze and “other data providers” as the source of its business information.
“We still have a relationship with [WhitePages],” said Katy Gilchrist, marketing manager at Localeze. “They license our data for local search.”
