Greg: We did enter into a partnership with US Bank to offer an ARRL affinity credit card. This was reported in January and the debut of the card was at the National Convention. And, as you pointed out, we do benefit financially from our members applying for and using the card. As part of this partnership we provided US Bank with the names and addresses of those members who have not prohibited us from doing so. I view this as being no different than our long standing arrangement with Marsh Affinity Group Services for the ARRL Equipment Insurance Program. They've been sending solicitations to our members for over 20 years. In addition, we've always sold our mailing list of members' postal addresses to companies who requested it, with the caveat of the use of the addresses being "in good taste". Most have been Amateur Radio related but not all. As for our current policy (which is also pretty much unchanged over time), the following is excerpted from the "Privacy Policy" page of the ARRL web site: ".....User names, addresses (including email addresses) and other personal information shall not be supplied to any third party with the following exception: Lists of ARRL member names and postal mailing addresses (but not email addresses) may be supplied to third parties. Each member will be given the opportunity to opt out of such mailings when submitting a membership application (new or renewal). A member may opt out of such mailings at any time by contacting the ARRL Circulation Department <mailto:circulation@arrl.org> . ....." I believe we give members the opportunity to opt out each time they join and/or renew. I hope this answers your questions. If not, please let me know. 73, Barry, N1VXY ________________________________ From: Greg Milnes [mailto:w7oz@comcast.net] Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 5:11 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:13004] Membership info released to private company? Jim I appreciate all the efforts that we're making in the Katrina situation but I'm upset in another area. I understand from two of our members that they received by snail mail FROM U.S. BANK directly, a solicitation for our ARRL affinity credit card. It was my understanding that we did not and would not release membership lists to private companies. Has this somehow changed? Did well sell our membership list to US BANK? Did we "give it away" with the excuse that it can benefit us financially through our cut in the action? What's going on here? 73/Greg W7OZ