AramcoBrats, Inc.

As many of you are now aware, we had a blatant violation of our directory usage policy.  We would like to apologize for this annoyance and assure everyone that we take this matter and the integrity of our contact information very seriously.

Firstly, we have determined that one of our members did, indeed, violate (a), (b) and (c) of our directory usage terms as well as the bylaws of our organization and continued to do so after we sent a reminder of our policy to everyone.  We have reason to believe the individual used the latest directory CD to accomplish this, not the online database.

As a result, we are taking the following actions:

• The individual's online directory privileges have been suspended indefinitely. We have informed him in writing of his violation and resulting suspension and requested he cease using directory contact information for commercial purposes and destroy any derivatives from computers.
• ABI will no longer issue biennial "publications" of our directory.  Both CD and paper versions pose the highest risk for "email harvesting" and this sort of wholesale abuse.
• ABI will review the website to make sure we are using what is available to us to protect against email address harvesting from web pages.  We have endeavored to set up our web page access such that any contact information, including email addresses, is not exposed to public view.  You may have noticed that news items and forum posts show the author as "anonymous" unless you are logged into the site. Any pages that might contain visible member contact information have been placed behind the members-only firewall.  (This is why you had to log into the site to see the Tucson Reunion Attendance List.)

The board may take further action to prevent this from recurring.  In the meantime, there are some actions we can all take with regard to SPAM mails in general:

• Reduce SPAM:
• • Most email applications allow you to filter out or even delete incoming emails from specific addresses (someone@example.com) or entire domains (@example.com).  It is best to check your email application's documentation for instructions on how to do this. For your convenience, here are instructions for some of the more common ones:
  • • Outlook instructions for blocking email senders and domains 
    • Mac OS X instructions for blocking email
    • Gmail: blocking mail from certain senders
    • Yahoo: blocking email addresses
  • OnGuardOnline has some other strategies for reducing your overall exposure to SPAM.

• Report SPAM: If you feel you have received a SPAM email that violates U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, report the violation.  The U.S. CAN-SPAM Act has very specific requirements governing all commercial emails and origin of email address lists. Noncompliance can result in penalties up to $16,000 per individual email. (Full text of CAN-SPAM Act)

Again, we apologize for the unwelcome solicitations you may have received and will keep everyone apprised of any further actions. Please contact us if you have any concerns related to this matter.

Sincerely,

ABI Board of Directors