AlumniClass.com has been the subject of many complaints to consumer advocacy organizations (including the Better Business Bureau, RipOffReport.com, and ComplaintsBoard.com), and has confused alumni from many other alumni associations (see these warnings from the Waynesville Alumni Association, the James Madison Alumni Association, the Shorewood High School Alumni Association, to mention but a few!)
It is our goal to alert all alumni that AlumniClass.com is not affiliated with our school or our alumni association in any way, and that by joining their site, you’ve given them permission to use and even sell your name, photos, and any uploaded content.
Typically alumni stumble upon AlumniClass.com, thinking it is their official San Dieguito Alumni Association website. They will register “for free”, only to discover later that if they want to contact other alumni, read reunion announcements, upload information, etc., they must “upgrade” to a paid membership.
(The REAL San Dieguito Alumni Association does not charge membership fees.)
What is worse: by joining AlumniClass.com, you unwittingly give AlumniClass the right to use or sell your name, photos and uploaded content in their advertising or for whatever purposes they desire. If you think this is illegal, check the following, copied from their Terms of Service on 2/24/15.
By submitting, uploading photos, text, yearbook photos or any other content to our Websites you grant us a royalty-free, non-terminable, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use, modify, edit, store, save, distribute, reproduce, recreate, change, adapt, have distributed, publish, publicly display, privately display, transmit, have transmitted, communicate, publicly perform, privately perform, create derivative works based upon, and promote all such content, in its entirety, whole or in part, in any known medium or hereafter devised medium, for commercial, promotional, editorial and any other purposes including, without limitation, the right to publish your name in connection with any content, market such content, and the right to sublicense any or all of these rights. You acknowledge that Alumniclass.com owns all right, title, and interest in any compilation, collective work, artistic work, or any other derivative work created using or incorporating any content you provide to our Websites.
Note that if you register with AlumniClass.com, you agree to the above contract, allowing AlumniClass.com to sell your name, photos, and other content! (Woe unto those alumni who registered using their Facebook information, unwittingly giving AlumniClass.com access to any photos or information uploaded to Facebook.)
In comparison, we never sell nor trade your data. We freely share your class’s information with your registered class representative, but only after that representative has agreed in writing to use your data for reunion-planning purposes only.
We are part of the SDA Foundation, a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that supports the students and programs of San Dieguito High School Academy. Donations to SDAF go to a good cause! But any funds given to AlumniClass.com support a private company that has nothing whatsoever to do with your high school.
AlumniClass.com has a disclaimer on its site that states “AlumniClass.com is not affiliated with and is independent of any school, school district, alumni association or any other sites.” Unfortunately, this disclaimer is the very last thing on their page or in their email, in tiny print. Unless you are looking for it, you won’t find it.
If you signed up at AlumniClass.com in the belief that it was the official alumni association of San Dieguito, we encourage you to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
There is only one San Dieguito Alumni Association, and its office is located on the same campus from which you graduated. We will never spam you or use your data without your permission. We respect our alumni. Please join us and support the REAL San Dieguito Alumni Association!
Go, Mustangs!