AFLAC Selects Critical Path Hosted Messaging for Nationwide Field Force Email System.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 2003

Leading Insurance Company Signs Multi-Year Renewal of Messaging

Service for Communicating With Over 55,000 Agents Throughout USA

Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH), a global leader in digital communications software and services, today announced that AFLAC, a leading insurance provider in the United States, has signed a new, multi-year agreement to use Critical Path's Hosted Messaging service to handle all electronic communications between the insurance company and its field agents. AFLAC has been using Critical Path's service for the past three years as the backbone of its Field Force Email system, which it uses to transmit critical business information to over 55,000 agents throughout all 50 United States.

As an insurance company, like other highly distributed organizations in industries with increasing regulatory requirements, AFLAC's business absolutely depends upon having reliable, secure communications. For AFLAC, Critical Path's Hosted Messaging service offers an ideal combination of functionality, reliability and ease of administration at a price that's compelling.

With Critical Path's Hosted Messaging service, AFLAC is providing web-based access to email with anti-virus protection for each of its more than 55,000 insurance agents throughout the United States. AFLAC uses this system for all electronic communications between the company and its agents, allowing documents such as promotions and corporate communications to be transmitted securely and inexpensively. As a result, AFLAC has been able to cut the costs of communicating with their field organization through reductions in printing, faxing and postage. In addition, with access from any web browser, agents are always able to get to crucial business information whether they are in their office, at a client's site, or on the road.

"AFLAC is an excellent example of how Critical Path's approach to delivering messaging services can benefit the bottom line of geographically distributed enterprises in industries such as insurance, manufacturing, or retail," said Tracy Currie, executive vice president and general manager of hosted services at Critical Path. "With Critical Path's Hosted Messaging service, such organizations are able to stay focused on driving their business while we take care of insuring that their people always have access to the best-of-breed, most affordable messaging services."

Critical Path is widely acknowledged to be the leader in hosted messaging services, a field it pioneered in 1997. Its service is built on Critical Path's Communications Platform, recognized as providing the industry's highest scalability and reliability -- at the lowest total cost of ownership. It offers a comprehensive set of messaging solutions for enterprises, telecommunications carriers and service providers. Critical Path recently launched its next generation hosted service with partner HP offering advanced features in mobility and collaboration. Additional information on Critical Path's hosted services is available at www.criticalpath.net.

About AFLAC

AFLAC Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) is an international holding company. A Fortune 500 company, AFLAC insures more than 40 million people worldwide. It is a leading writer of insurance products marketed at the worksite in the United States, offering policies to employees at more than 271,200 payroll accounts. The company insures one out of four Japanese households and is the largest life insurer in Japan in terms of individual policies in force. In January 2003, AFLAC was the number one insurance company in Fortune magazine's list of "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America" and was included in the overall listing for the fifth consecutive year. In March 2003, Fortune also included AFLAC in its annual listing of "America's Most Admired Companies." And in July 2003, Fortune named AFLAC to its list of "America's 50 Best Companies for Minorities." AFLAC's Internet address is www.aflac.com.

About Critical Path, Inc.

Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH) is a global leader in digital communications software and services. The company provides messaging solutions -- from wireless, secure and unified messaging to basic email and personal information management -- as well as identity management solutions that simplify user profile management and strengthen information security. The standards-based Critical Path Communications Platform, built to perform reliably at the scale of public networks, delivers the industry's lowest total cost of ownership for messaging solutions and lays a solid foundation for next-generation communications services. Solutions are available on a hosted or licensed basis. Critical Path's customers include more than 700 enterprises, 200 carriers and service providers, eight national postal authorities and 35 government agencies. Critical Path is headquartered in San Francisco. More information can be found at www.criticalpath.net.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements by the Company and its executives regarding the performance, security, scalability and interoperability of our product and service offerings, the ability of our customers to achieve cost savings in the provision of services, industry trends, market and customer requirements, the ability of our products and services to meet the business needs of our customers, the market for products and services like ours and the performance of our senior management in achieving strategic goals. The words and expressions "look forward to," "will," "expect," "plan," "believe," "seek," "strive for," "anticipate," hope," "estimate" and similar expressions are intended to identify the Company's forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, our evolving business strategy and the emerging and changing nature of the market for our products and services, our ability to deliver on our sales objectives, the ability of our technology and our competitors' technologies to address customer demands, changes in economic and market conditions, unplanned system interruptions and capacity constraints, software and service design defects. These and other risks and uncertainties are described in more detail in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov) made from time to time, including Critical Path's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002,and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarters ended March 31 and June 30, 2003, as may be amended from time to time, and all subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date any such statement is made.

Note to Editors: Critical Path and the Critical Path logo are the trademarks of Critical Path, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their holders.