Intersearch Celebrates Listing: Another Embarrassment at the American Stock Exchange

Intersearch Group Inc (IGO), which “provides Internet paid search and advertising [blah blah blah]” took a belated bow at The World’s Most Unnecessary Securities Exchange™ yesterday, with its smug-looking executives celebrating the company’s listing (in Sep. 2006, but that’s neither here nor there).

The hook: yesterday was, of course, the filing deadline for most individual U.S. taxpayers, and among Intersearch’s businesses is IRS.com, which, as its disclaimer clearly states, in text somewhat smaller than its logo, “is not the Internal Revenue Service.”

The smug bell-ringers obviously hadn’t seen The New York Times, where the always informative David Cay Johnston played the diarrhea-afflicted elephant in the Intersearch parade:

…Hours later, in Washington, the House is scheduled to vote on legislation that clarifies the law barring for-profit companies from using names that sound like official government agencies…

…Claudia Crowley, the chief regulatory officer for the American Stock Exchange, said yesterday that the exchange had assigned its best special investigator to look into Intersearch’s disclosure statements…

Two things:

NakedShorts found a file photograph (above right) of the Amex’s best special investigator.

Methinks Intersearch Group Inc doth protest WAY too much.

House to Vote on Bill to Ban Web Site Names That Resemble Those of US Agencies
By David Cay Johnston
The New York Times Apr. 17 2007