Gun Statistics Expert John Lott Victim of Identity Theft By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief August 04, 2003
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Dr. John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the most widely cited research on civilian use of firearms against criminals, has been targeted by an online identity theft scheme, he disclosed Friday. Lott operates his own website through which he makes available the raw data for the research cited in his most famous book "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws." Running a search for Lott's name on the Google search engine Friday morning, CNSNews.com found hundreds of links to pages talking about Lott and dozens of links to pages containing material written by Lott. The search even, if pursued long enough, yielded a link to Lott's official web page. But the Google search also displayed "a sponsored link" for the web page "AskJohnLott.org." "Ask John Lott: You can ask him any question you have about gun control or his books www.askjohnlott.org," the paid advertisement claimed, followed by a graphic indicator showing high interest in the website. The only problem with both the advertisement and the website is that neither was authorized by Lott. Rest of article: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200308\NAT20030804c.html An interesting tangent is that the "sponsored link" to Google on this page (that is supplied by Google per https://www.google.com/adsense/) is www.askjohn.org.
