State's name-selling practice is "a way to make money"

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, the agency that oversees more than 100 professions in the state, sells its database of names to marketing companies, and has done so for at least 30 years.

UIS Professor of Political Science Chris Mooney was quoted in an article that ran in the May 20, 2008, edition of the Rockford Register Star. Said Mooney, "It sounds like it might be a little bit shady, but the argument on the other side is, 'Would you rather be taxed?'"

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20080520-RRS-StateSellsNames.pdf