Start-up Firm Habeas Stops Spam with Poetry and the Law; Noted Anti-Spam Attorney Anne P. Mitchell Named CEO; Backed by Skymoon Ventures.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 19, 2002

Habeas, Inc., the company that fights spam with poetry and the law, announced today the availability of the Habeas Sender Warranted Email(TM) (SWE) service. Free to individuals and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the service combines innovative technology with existing copyright and trademark law to eradicate spam.

Habeas' patent-pending service works by trademarking and copyrighting a unique set of lines, known as the warrant mark, which is embedded in the headers of outgoing email. Included is a haiku poem. Copyright offers legal protection to the poetry. Trademark offers legal protection to other parts of the email header.

Spammers who improperly use the Habeas warrant mark can be prosecuted under trademark and copyright law. Habeas can seek penalties of $1 million and more, shut down offenders through injunction, and in severe cases refer them for criminal prosecution. Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to serve as Habeas' collection agency.

"Existing law offers little protection from spammers, who also continue to find new ways to beat even the most sophisticated filtering technologies," said Anne P. Mitchell, President and CEO of Habeas and former legal affairs director for Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS). "Technology alone can't stop spam. But existing copyright and trademark law used in conjunction with Habeas' patent-pending system allows us to sue and shut down spammers while protecting legitimate senders of mail."

Habeas complements existing anti-spam solutions, helping them work better. For example, users of the popular SpamAssassin product can set their filters at more sensitive thresholds without the worry of losing wanted messages. And Mail-Filters.com(TM) has deployed Habeas as part of a suite of tools that stops spam and allows legitimate email.

"SpamAssassin Pro(TM) spam-filtering software is always on the look-out for additional weapons to beat spam," said Craig Hughes, CTO of Deersoft, Inc., developers of SpamAssassin. "We look forward to the contribution of Habeas and to being able to include it as one of the SpamAssassin(TM) tools for determining whether an email is or isn't spam."

"Having built the Habeas warrant mark into our SpamCure and SpamRepellent anti-spam email solutions, we are helping enterprises and companies separate what is valid commercial email from unsolicited commercial e-mail (or spam)," said Ben Westbrook, President and CEO of Mail-Filters.com, Inc. "At Mail-Filters, we are aggressively attacking the spam problem for our customers, and the Habeas warrant mark system is one of the tools we use to maintain our typical 95 percent effectiveness at catching spam while allowing legitimate commercial emails."

Habeas is also designed to work with existing services such as the Spamhaus Project that help ISPs battle unwanted email by maintaining comprehensive lists of offending Internet sites that spam.

"Because of spam, Internet users are ever more reluctant to sign up for even legitimate mailings fearing yet more spam," said Steven Linford, founder and director of the Spamhaus Project. "The Habeas service is an important step forward to protect both consumers and the email marketing industry from the blight of spam and from unscrupulous spammers pretending to be 'marketing firms'."

Spam costs consumers and corporations billions of dollars a year, according to industry figures. PC World magazine estimates the bandwidth costs alone of spam exceed $8 billion annually. By 2006, spam output will soar seven-fold to around 15 billion messages a day, according to market research firm Radicati Group.

Free to individuals and ISPs, enterprises pay a low-cost annual license fee for the Habeas service. Commercial bulk email providers sending verified permission mailings pay based on the volume of their mail. There is a simple, no-cost process to automatically configure mail clients and servers to take advantage of the service. To start using the service, visit www.habeas.com for license terms and instructions.

Habeas has already signed up industry-leading firms with its new service, including Microsoft/WebTV(R) and Hong Kong-based Outblaze, an outsourcing company providing the messaging technology services behind some of the world's largest and best known email providers.

"Outblaze operates outsourced e-business tools and communication services for companies in over 100 countries worldwide," said Yat Siu, CEO of Outblaze. "We're dedicated to helping our partners and clients achieve the highest customer satisfaction levels, and that means taking aggressive steps against the proliferation of junk mail. Our work with Habeas demonstrates our commitment to industry best practices."

Habeas also announced today that is has closed a Series A funding round led by Skymoon Ventures. Financial terms were not disclosed.

About Habeas, Inc.

Based in Palo Alto, California, Habeas is a private company with venture funding that offers a legal and user-based service designed to eradicate spam. Habeas boasts advisory boards comprised of world-leading experts in law and technology, including renowned anti-spam attorney Michael Grow, Internet Mail Consortium director Paul Hoffman, and "Internet for Dummies" author John Levine. For more information, visit Habeas on the Web at www.habeas.com.

Note to Editors: Habeas and Habeas Sender Warranted Email are registered trademarks of Habeas, Inc. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks or copyrights of their respective owners.