Lucent Technologies Announces Trial of Proxymate.com, Free Consumer Web Service That Enables Privacy-based Web Surfing.

MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 1999--

Service Based on the Lucent Personalized Web Assistant Technology

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) has announced the field trial of a free consumer Web service, Proxymate.com, which enables users to surf the Web with privacy. The trial service, which will be supported by advertising, is aimed primarily at the growing number of home and first-time Internet users, providing a one-stop site (www.proxymate.com) with the necessary tools to protect user identities and block receipt of e-mail spam.

Based on underlying Lucent Personalized Web Assistant (LPWA) technology, developed by Bell Labs in 1997, Proxymate.com is being evaluated by Lucent as a potential venture. Proxymate.com is currently the only free privacy service on the Web.

"We want our users to know that we are protecting them every click of the way. We are an easy-to-use, friendly service that guides and protects users on the Web," said Robert Lee, director, Lucent's New Ventures Group. "Privacy is perhaps the greatest concern people have about the Web today. We believe that Proxymate.com provides users with the kind of robust privacy they need in order to protect and enjoy themselves on the Web."

Two key Proxymate.com features will be evaluated in the trial service:

- Privacy filtering - filters out information that typically gets

passed to Web sites, thereby allowing the consumers to browse the

web with anonymity

- AutoFill - automatically fills out the user's name, password,

e-mail and other information on Web sites that require this

information. Users would no longer have to remember user names

and passwords to access these personalized sites, eliminating

confusion and time-wasting frustration

- Alias creation - creates aliases when the consumer enters \u for

user name, \p for password, or \@ for e-mail address and submits

these aliases to web sites requiring registration. Because the

aliases are encoded, Web sites cannot use them to gain or

distribute information about the real user

- Spam filtering tool - users can create e-mail accounts that could

be susceptible to spam and easily delete mail to those accounts,

while protecting their identities

The Proxymate.com trial service is designed so that consumers can easily sign up for the service in seconds without downloading or installing any special hardware or software. Proxymate.com acts as an intermediary between the consumer and the rest of the Web, filtering out key information so that Web sites cannot establish a personal profile of the user.

"As the Web continues to grow in numbers of users, so too do the concerns over personal privacy. We have been working to ensure that our technology is strong enough and easy enough to use so that the average Web surfer can enjoy a worry-free experience," said Mike Reiter, director of the Bell Labs Secure Systems Research Department.

LPWA was originally developed by Bell Labs scientists Eran Gabber, Phil Gibbons, David M. Kristol, Yossi Matias, and Alain Mayer.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N. J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit the company's web site at www.lucent.com.