Disappearing Inc. Unveils Disappearing Email Service.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Demo 2000

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2000

Enables Enforcement of Corporate Email Policies;

Provides Self-Destruct Mechanism for Protecting

Confidentiality of Email Messages

Disappearing Inc., a San Francisco-based developer of email policy systems, today announced Disappearing Email(TM), which lets individuals keep their email conversations private, and enables companies to implement and enforce email policies that reduce liability and provide security.

&uot;Email is actually very dangerous right now because private, casual email conversations frequently become permanent, public records,&uot; said Maclen Marvit, Disappearing Inc.'s CEO. &uot;Disappearing Email ensures message confidentiality by making all copies of an email message self-destruct after a certain length of time as determined by corporate policy.&uot;

Disappearing Email eliminates the risks of unprotected email by enabling centrally administered corporate policies and ensuring routine destruction of old messages, including those stored on backup tapes.

Disappearing Email operates transparently inside users' standard mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook(R), and lets managers easily set a variety of different email policies within their company from a central point of control.

Disappearing Email is currently in beta at a number of organizations, including the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and BBM Solutions in Toronto. It will become available in March 2000.

&uot;Just as we routinely shred paper documents, there are some types of electronic documents we want to shred, or expire, on a routine basis,&uot; explained Dr. Cynthia Irvine, director, Center for INFOSEC Studies and Research at the Naval Postgraduate School.

&uot;But you can't do that with email -- there is always residue on disks and back up tapes. Disappearing Email can increase the discretionary control we have of electronic messages.&uot;

&uot;Disappearing Email is almost totally transparent to use. Users don't need to do anything special when they send or receive email, and we don't need to make any changes to our email infrastructure,&uot; said Boro Marinkovich, Technology Specialist with BBM Solutions. &uot;It's only when the email disappears that people realize something amazing has happened.&uot;

Disappearing Email is being shown this week at the DEMO 2000 conference in Indian Wells. Demo's executive producer, Chris Shipley, together with her staff, evaluates products from over 1,000 companies each year before selecting the 60 most promising products to unveil at the conference.

&uot;With the increasing reliance on email for evidence in legal disputes, the only prudent option for companies without email policy tools has been to avoid discussing sensitive issues via email,&uot; Shipley said. &uot;Disappearing Inc.'s unique approach to message confidentiality means companies can now discuss sensitive topics frankly and without fear.&uot;

&uot;Many companies establish email-retention policies, but those policies are often impossible to enforce manually,&uot; said Jim Forbes, executive editor of Demo Letter. &uot;Disappearing Inc.'s email policy administration tools help businesses manage the process of deleting email after a specified time, thereby shielding them from legal liability. This protects the corporation and eliminates a tedious burden that would otherwise be placed on employees.&uot;

Other analysts stressed the need for companies to automate enforcement of their email policies, and to ensure any solution they adopt is compatible with their existing infrastructure and end users' environments.

&uot;Disappearing Inc.'s unique method of making email inaccessible after an allotted time not only reduces the legal risks associated with lingering email, it portends many new ways of managing sensitive distributed content,&uot; said Dana Gardner, analyst at Aberdeen Group in Boston.

&uot;Many organizations that are now steeped in email -- and that's most of them -- need to recognize the risks of not adequately managing and cleaning it up.&uot;

&uot;The right approach to implementing email policy is to rely on systems that are easy to deploy and maintain, and which individuals inside companies won't find burdensome,&uot; said Chris Selland, vice president of E-Business Strategies at the Yankee Group, a leading, Boston-based market research firm.

&uot;That's what makes Disappearing Inc.'s focus on ease of use, compatibility with standard clients, and ability to provide corporate-wide support for email policies look so promising.&uot;

Disappearing Email components The Disappearing Email(TM) service includes Disappearing Email(TM) for Microsoft Outlook(R), Disappearing Email Viewer(TM), Disappearing Email Administrator(TM), Disappearing Email Server(TM), and Disappearing Email Hosted Network(TM).

Disappearing Email for Microsoft Outlook(R) lets users send and receive Disappearing Email messages just like regular messages. When the user hits the 'send' key, a key is borrowed from the Disappearing Email Server, and the message is encrypted with that key. Then, the encrypted message travels through the email system just like any ordinary message.

When the recipient opens the message, Disappearing Email for Microsoft Outlook automatically &uot;borrows&uot; the key from the Disappearing Email Server to decode and display the message.

The Disappearing Email Viewer allows recipients not supported by Disappearing Email to open and read Disappearing Email messages. The message appears as an attachment that can be opened from within the recipient's WWW browser of choice.

The Disappearing Email Administrator provides a central point of control for setting corporate policies. Accessed via a Web browser, Disappearing Email Administrator can control the options of all the copies of Disappearing Email for Microsoft Outlook in an organization.

It also lets users determine how long to save messages based on a variety of criteria like subject matter, work group, department, individual, or date.

The Disappearing Email Server creates and stores a unique key for each message composed. Once a key is deleted from the server, all copies of the associated message, including those on backup tapes, become unreadable. As a company's user base grows, it's easy to expand the system with the addition of more key servers.

The Disappearing Email Hosted Network(TM) is a hosted network service from Disappearing Inc. Intended for companies that don't want to maintain a Disappearing Email Server in house, it scales to your needs and allows you to gain the benefits of a world-class email policy system without having to support it.

Pricing and Availability

The Disappearing Email service is priced at $4 per user per month. It will be available in March 2000.

About Disappearing Inc.

Disappearing Inc. is a privately held company founded in February 1999. Disappearing Email, the flagship offering from Disappearing Inc., works with standard email systems to encrypt, control, and delete messages, including those stored on back-up tapes or forwarded to third parties.

In addition to funding from Kleiner Perkins, the company has received investments from Angel Investors LLP; Compaq Computer's chairman Ben Rosen; Inventures Group's founding partner Eric Hahn, and Red Rock Ventures. For more information, please contact Disappearing Inc. at 415/896-5000; or via email at [e-mail]; or via the World Wide Web at www.disappearing.com.

Note to Editors: The Disappearing Inc. logo, Disappearing Email, Disappearing Email Administrator, Disappearing Email Viewer, Disappearing Email Server, Disappearing Email Hosted Network, and Universally Delete are trademarks of Disappearing Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.