CYBERsitter Provides Dirty Word Filter for AOL's ICQ Users After Learning of Illegal Use.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 1999--Solid Oak Software Inc., publisher of the leading Internet content filtering program, CYBERsitter(tm), announced the release of a dirty word filter plug-in for America Online's ICQ chat.

ICQ Inc. has been providing its 28 million users free access to a copyrighted dirty word filter that was obtained from an original CYBERsitter filter. The encrypted filter was reverse engineered and published without permission or benefit of license.

"A large number of CYBERsitter users also use ICQ and have expressed confusion regarding the legality of their list," said Marc Kanter, vice president of Solid Oak Software. "To eliminate any confusion, we decided to create an up-to-date list in the ICQ format and make it available publicly."

Solid Oak Software will offer a 60-day amnesty period where current ICQ users who use the program for personal entertainment can replace their illegal list with the new, authorized list, free of charge.

"In making this list available to the public, we are in no way excusing ICQ for this obvious disregard of copyright laws," said Kanter. "We have discussed this at length with our support and legal departments, and feel that ICQ has basically forced us into a position of having to protect our reputation and provide service to our customers. When our customers call and express concerns about this problem, we need to have a solution for them."

ICQ users can download the authorized CYBERsitter dirty word list beginning Thursday from a link on the CYBERsitter Web site, http://www.cybersitter.com.