BuyerLeverage Discloses Patent Rights to Bill Gates' ''Magic'' Spam Solution; Email Self-Insurance Promises to Eliminate Spam Permanently.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- BuyerLeverage, a developer and marketer of patent-protected technologies that allow consumers and businesses to control their Internet communication and relationships, today announced Email Self-Insurance(TM), a user-controlled spam solution. Email Self-Insurance(TM) discourages spam at its source by forcing those who send unwanted email to pay for the resources they abuse. The solution allows legitimate senders to email seamlessly at no cost, while making the sending of spam uneconomical. It is the only solution that completely eliminates unwanted email without filtering legitimate communications. At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill Gates characterized the technology as a "magic" solution, and as the "most promising...long-term solution" to the spam problem.

"Despite better email filters, new legislation and high-profile legal action, spam volume continues to grow rapidly. As costs of fighting spam increase and spam accounts for the majority of email transmissions, consumers and service providers are losing patience," said Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester Research. "The best solution to spam is not legal, technical or regulatory -- it's economic. Companies stand to save significant time and money by adopting a solution like Email Self-Insurance."

Email Self-Insurance is based on a simple, elegant and technically straightforward mechanism -- permanently and inexpensively eliminating spam without creating false positives. Email Self-Insurance differentiates itself from currently available solutions in that it is controlled and configured by the user and the market, not by technology, a machine, an intermediary (such as an ISP or email provider) or the sender.

The solution requires senders to insure their emails with a small deposit of a level determined by the potential recipient. This deposit is forfeit only if the recipient deems the message unwanted, so legitimate correspondents will rarely incur any cost. Email Self-Insurance will only require deposits from senders not on the recipient's accepted ("white") list, guaranteeing seamless communications between typical users. This white list, built on existing technology, will be automatically populated from the address book, sent mail and any accepted messages. If a sender's address is not found in the recipient's white list, an alert is returned to the sender requiring a deposit be made. Once the message has been insured, the email will then appear in the user's inbox at which time the recipient either accepts or rejects the message.

With this solution in place, email costs will become prohibitive for spammers, while legitimate email marketers stand to improve their results by reaching a truly willing audience. Corporations will incur nominal or no costs in insuring outgoing emails, while freeing up congested information conduits and thousands of dollars previously dedicated to spam filtering technologies and email storage.

BuyerLeverage indicated that it has started discussions with leading technology firms and ISPs to bring about a timely, full implementation of the solution, with the goal of making its technology widely available at minimal cost to the consumer. According to CEO Mark Landesmann, "We believe it is in the best interest of our company and of the public at large to make our solution available to users as quickly as possible and at a minimal cost. The reaction of those companies we have approached to date has been highly receptive. Clearly, the nation's largest technology companies are being diligent in trying to solve this problem and are eager to participate in the implementation of a user-controlled permanent spam solution."

Email Self-Insurance(TM) is compatible with various proposed Sender Authentication protocols including SenderID, DomainKeys and Sender Policy Framework ("SPF"). While these authentication protocols help identify senders, they do not deter these identified senders from sending spam, nor do they allow recipients to control access to their inbox. Email Self-Insurance accomplishes these essential tasks.

"Since Email Self-Insurance is a market-based solution rather than one built on technology, it does not join the technical war of attrition between spammers and users," said Randy Korba, BuyerLeverage's vice president of Business Development. "Only a completely effective, user-controlled system can bring an end to the spate of spam, and Email Self-Insurance is the only such solution."

Beginning in 2000, CEO Landesmann was the first to file and publish multiple patent applications on this solution, explaining that an economic solution was needed whereas technical and regulatory approaches could always be circumvented by spammers. Based on opinions issued by leading legal and patent firms, BuyerLeverage now owns exclusive and prohibitive patent rights with respect to this anti-spam method.

About BuyerLeverage

BuyerLeverage, based in Palo Alto, California, develops and markets patent-protected technologies that allow consumers and businesses to control their Internet communication and relationships. The company has a broad intellectual property portfolio, which includes patent rights to the market-based technology that Microsoft has called the long-term solution to spam. These technologies have been evaluated and endorsed by several of the country's leading interactive marketing experts. For more information, please visit the Web site at http://www.buyerleverage.com/.