Dear Members,

We are pleased to announce that AGORACOM will begin displaying a partial IP address of all posts made on and after Monday, April 26, 2010. The measure has been introduced in order to provide our community with greater transparency with respect to posts on AGORACOM. As a result of this new measure, members will be able to view other members who may be using the same IP address with just one click – and report any suspicious activity via the AGORACOM violations system.

HOW IT WORKS – PRIVACY INTACT

We want to emphasize that only partial IP addresses will be displayed in order to maintain the privacy of our members. Much like receipts printed out after making a purchase at a restaurant, only part of the IP address will be visible to the public in order to maintain the privacy of all members.

For example, an IP address is comprised of four sets of numbers and looks like this: 252.234.99.23. When displayed on AGORACOM, the first two sets of numbers will be concealed in order to keep your location/geographic information private. As such, the IP address 252.234.99.23 will be publicly displayed as XXX.XXX.99.23 to insure your privacy.

HOW IT WORKS – TRANSPARENCY

Using the above IP as an example, members that are suspicious of a particular member’s posting will be able to click on the displayed IP address XXX.XXX.99.23. The AGORACOM system, which keeps track of the full IP address in our back end, will automatically display any other members that share the full IP address. A match does not necessarily mean a violation has occurred but it will allow members to quickly and easily compare the posts of members sharing an IP address for potential multiple alias violations. If a member suspects a multiple alias violation, they can then easily report it via our “Report Violation” system.

We want to thank-you for continuing to make AGORACOM the best small-cap community on the web and look forward to any questions and comments you may have pertaining to our new IP address initiative.

Regards,
George, Paul et al