AltaVista and Netscape Announce Major Internet Search Alliance

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (October 25, 1999) – Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online (NYSE: AOL), announced that the AltaVista Company (NASDAQ: CMGI) licensed Netscape’s Open Directory Project as the primary directory for the popular AltaVista Internet search service. This announcement follows on the heels of Netscape’s recent announcement that its Open Directory Project has grown to more than 1,000,000 sites and marks an important step in the continued growth of the Open Directory Project as a burgeoning standard for Internet search and directory services.

“AltaVista’s adoption of the Open Directory is clearly an endorsement of the directory’s quality and breadth,” said Jim Martin senior vice president and general manager of Netscape. “What started as a small, independent site with a handful of contributors in 1998 has quickly mushroomed into a major contender in the directory space that has attracted the interest of Web industry leaders. That’s the power of the Web and open development in action.”

Netscape’s Open Directory Project is the first Internet directory search service built by the Web community at large and is an easy and fast way to find information relevant to users needs. The Open Directory Project empowers the Web community to review and categorize sites based on their area of interest and expertise. The Open Directory Project offers more than 1,000,000 sites in over 160,000 categories from 229 countries in 44 languages, and is available today at http://dmoz.org.

To promote its continued growth, Netscape makes the Open Directory Project available to anyone under a free use license. More than one hundred leading Internet companies have licensed the directory including AOL (http://search.aol.com/), Netscape (http://search.netscape.com/), Lycos (http://dir.lycos.com/), HotBot (http://directory.hotbot.com/), and InfoSpace (http://www.infospace.com/info/index_wbs.htm).

The Open Directory Project delivers up-to-date and relevant search results by employing the industry’s first freshness dating system delivering less than one-percent dead links. Consumers can easily recommend new sites for the directory and, with more than 17,000 contributors, new sites are quickly reviewed, categorized and added to the directory. Finally, Netscape helps facilitate communication in the Open Directory Project community with the newly integrated AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ services.

About America Online, Inc.
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 18 million members, and CompuServe, worth more than 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, Digital City Inc.; Netscape Netcenter, AOL.COM portals; Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers; AOL MovieFone, Spinner Networks and NullSoft, Inc.; and Digital Marketing Services, Inc., the leading provider of online, ROI-based, marketing services and online custom market research. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.

Netscape Netcenter is a leading portal site that provides users with a home base on the Internet. From Netcenter, users can navigate the Internet, access a broad range of consumer and business content and services, and communicate with others online. The site includes seventeen content channels, a set of leading-edge services including the new Netscape-branded Search, Site Central, Netscape Contact, Netscape SmartUpdate, Software Download, Member Directory, My Netscape personalization service and WebMail.