What credit does inclusion in "Who is Who" book add to the researchers and academicians? This question has two intents. Firstly sharing an email I received, as an academician, with other academicians and also clarification on the contents of this email and the way it works.

I have received the following email.


  Dear XYZ,
  
  I am the editor-in-chief of Who's Who in the World® and I have received your name through a private nomination process. I'm writing to ask if you would provide us with information about your personal and professional accomplishments for possible inclusion in the forthcoming 33rd Edition. 
  Inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world.
  
  Like LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Facebook, it costs you nothing to be included in Who's Who in the World. But unlike those resources, our books only contain biographies that meet our rigorous selection criteria (see below). Also, our books are available both online and in print and are used by the world's most respected institutions. So among other things, Who's Who in the World provides all the benefits of high quality networking. Many people put this recognition on their résumés or CVs.
  
  Please click this link to the Who's Who in the World Biography Submission Form and you will be taken to our password-protected site. The submission process takes only a few minutes, and the benefits of being included are significant.
  
  Deadline: February 23, 2015 Congratulations on being nominated!
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Fred Marks
  Editor-in-Chief, Who's Who in the World®


I googled this message and found some other people are getting it. I further drilled down and found that my email is allegedly given to them by Thomson Reuters (from the Thomson connect website that is the sender of the above email). So, I assume I am not the only one and will not be the last. I assume many of you academician and researchers will receive the same email so I thought it is good to raise the concern here since I found no other discussion elsewhere. 

The email is being sent from 

Who's Who Selection Committee 
and the reply-to field shows    Who's Who Selection Committee 

The email is Signed By "thomsonreuters-authorconnect.com" (suggests that my email is being given to them by Thomson Reuters).

The company behind this email is called

￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼Marquis Who is Who, Publisher of Who’s Who in America® since 1899

Here are my concern:


How much is this website credible? Does anyone (including academic employers) give credit to those listed there (email says, inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world). 
Registering into the system needs to fill a form that contains almost every single piece of information about me, including my parents, education, work, wife, certification, political/social activities and many more which is quite scary to me. How can individuals rely on this particular website and share their information. Does inclusion in this particular website gives so much credit that people lose privacy?
They are trying to sell their books and associated vanity products. They know that their primary market for it, is people included in it.

Personally, I'd take an academic's inclusion in it to be a possible indication of gullibility.

If you've got the time, the Forbes article on the Marquis Who's Who series, "Hall of Lame", is worth a read.