Sgrouples Named to the Online Trust Alliance 2012 Honor Roll in Recognition of Excellence in

Consumer Protection and Online Privacy

San Francisco, CA – August 16, 2012 – Sgrouples®, the world’s first free, privacy focused, all-in-

one social media dashboard, announced today it has been named to the Online Trust Alliance

(OTA) 2012 Online Trust Honor Roll and accepted as a member in recognition of its leadership

in the field of online privacy and security.

As part of the 2012 study, OTA analyzed the adoption of key security and privacy initiatives,

providing benchmark reporting and comparisons between key industry sectors including

leading internet retailers, FDIC Top 100 Banks, and social networking sites. A select group of

companies evaluated by the non-profit OTA were named to the Honor Roll based on a

composite analysis of ten criteria.

“Today’s businesses are stewards of ever-increasing amounts of users’ personal and sensitive

data that necessitate the implementation of privacy and security best practices,” said Craig

Spiezle, executive director and president, Online Trust Alliance. “Sgrouples scored exceptionally

well during our analysis, and has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment

towards online safety while setting new standards for privacy and security among social media

sites.”

“We are honored by the OTA’s recognition of Sgrouples as a leader in user privacy and

security,” said Mark Weinstein, founder and CEO of Sgrouples. “Sgrouples has a deep

commitment to personal privacy and user protection. We believe that it is absolutely possible

to be both private and social, and offer the best, simplest, and most intuitive user experience

possible while protecting your personal data with a cutting-edge Privacy Bill of Rights. We will

never track, profile, or exploit our users in any way.”

The 2012 report examined over 1,200 domains and privacy policies, approximately 3,600 web

pages and over 500 million emails. In addition, public records were analyzed for recent data

breach incidents and settlements with the FTC.

The focus of the OTA Online Trust Honor Roll is to:

1. Recognize exemplary efforts of leading companies toward data and user protection, as

security & privacy efforts, and highlight them as “North Stars.” Organizations on the

Honor Roll manage data via security best practices while having transparent privacy

practices.

2. Demonstrate OTA’s commitment towards providing prescriptive advice, tools and

resources to businesses to enhance the security and privacy of the internet.

3. Underscore the importance of focusing on security and privacy holistically, and that

individual security and privacy initiatives cannot be pursued in isolation.

4. Provide benchmark scoring, using the Online Trust Index (OTI) and reported data

attributes, for companies to evaluate their own sites, for businesses to use in evaluating

partners, and for consumers to consider when interacting or doing business online.

Since 2010, the OTA Online Trust Honor Roll has recognized organizations that follow best

practices in data security and privacy. In previous years, the study was named the OTA Online

Safety Honor Roll and Scorecard Honor Roll.

About The Online Trust Alliance (OTA)

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) is a non-profit with the mission to enhance online trust, while

promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet. OTA’s goal is to educate businesses,

policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to

enhance users’ security, privacy and transparency on the use of their data. OTA supports

collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and

data stewardship. For more information, visit: https://otalliance.org.

About Sgrouples

Sgrouples is the world’s first free, all-in-one social media dashboard that offers truly private

user groups, social network aggregation and personal cloud storage while completely

protecting its users with a cutting-edge Privacy Bill of Rights. Sgrouples makes privacy and

integrity—our passion and commitment—its core value. No tracking, monitoring or profiling of

its users. No personal information will ever be gathered or shared with third party companies.

When you’re in your private group at Sgrouples, you own your content. It’s the way life should

be.