I have a couple of questions. 1) ScottA: Why are you peppering this thread with nonsensical animated gifs? They do not add to the discussion, and neither do the snide asides directed at IB. What they do achieve is to make you, and the site you represent look extremely unprofessional, and untrustworthy. 2) If the issue is (as I see it in my attempt to understand Renderosity Admin's POV) preventing the competition from accessing confidential information; why not take a different approach? Rather than alienate your members(aka: customers) and merchants by denying them (franchised merchants, for lack of a better term) access to something so simple, yet so important as a forum to discuss Renderosity merchant related issues; why not do this?: Don't discuss confidential Renderosity business related information information in the merchants forum. Not that this excuse holds any water for me anyway, but if you are going to insist that you only want to lock out he competition from confidential info, simply don't share that info in the forum. Why is that such a difficult thing?