INTERACTIVE SERVICES ASSOCIATION NAMED AS ADVISER TO CONGRESSIONAL INTERNET CAUCUS

SILVER SPRING, Md., April 10 /PRNewsire/ -- Interactive Services Association has been named as one of the advisory members of the new congressional Internet Caucus, a bipartisan group of House and Senate members working to help guide Congress through "cyberspace."

The ISA, based in Silver Spring, Md., represents more than 325 companies providing interactive services to consumers, including major online and Internet companies. Along with the National Consumers League and a number of its members, it recently launched Project OPEN (the Online Public Education Network), a consumer education initiative to help ensure that Americans have a positive experience when they go online.

The Internet Caucus was formally launched on March 28 under the leadership of Reps. Rick White (R-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Larry Pressler (R-SD). It plans to work to educate members of Congress about the Internet and to encourage more members to go online and to communicate with their constituents by e-mail.

"We applaud this initiative and welcome the opportunity to work with members of the Internet Caucus to help educate their congressional colleagues," said Robert L. Smith Jr., executive director of the ISA. "One of the challenges we face as an industry is to help legislators and regulators understand the rapidly changing medium that the Internet and online services represent."

Smith said that the ISA has offered to help connect the caucus with experts from its membership that could help members of Congress set up home pages on the World Wide Web -- one of the caucus' goals. He also noted that Rep. White had served as keynote speaker at an ISA Public Policy Forum in Washington the day before the caucus was launched, and praised the congressman's efforts to communicate with the industry.

The caucus' advisory group includes representatives of 26 companies and associations, including ISA members America Online, AT&T, CompuServe, MCI, Microsoft, Netscape and Prodigy.

The Web site of the caucus is http://www.house.gov/white/internet_caucus/netcauc.html. The home page of the ISA is http://www.isa.net and of Project OPEN, http://www.isa.net/project-open.

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/CONTACT: Bob Smith or Sara Fitzgerald of Interactive Services Association, 301-495-4955/

CO: Interactive Services Association ST: Maryland IN: CPR SU:

DC-PS -- DCW027 -- 6568 04/10/96 13:46 EDT