June 30, 1999, San Mateo, Calif.- ONElist, Inc. (http://www.onelist.com), the leading provider of free e-mail list and group communication services for average users of the Internet, today announced that it has been certified by TRUSTe for its robust privacy and anti-SPAM policies and practices. ONElist will now prominently display the TRUSTe seal, or "trustmark," on its Web site. The TRUSTe privacy seal assures ONElist members that the company fully discloses how its Web site handles personally identifiable information.

"TRUSTe conducted a thorough review of ONElist's service and found that its privacy policy meets TRUSTe's high standards," said Bob Lewin, executive director at TRUSTe. "TRUSTe and ONElist will work together to ensure that ONElist's data collection and protection practices continue to meet TRUSTe's guidelines."

ONElist's decision to exclusively support only ONElist-hosted lists in its directories (unique among e-mail list community services) helped the company meet TRUSTe's stringent requirements, and ensures that millions of ONElist members enjoy a positive e-mail list community experience.

"Our policy of not providing links or pointers to e-mail lists residing outside the ONElist service has helped us build the world's most successful e-mail list community service," said Mark Fletcher, founder and CEO of ONElist. "This policy gives us the ability to ensure service-wide excellence and protect our members from privacy violations - something that can't be guaranteed by other e-mail list services that link to lists outside of their control."

ONElist's exclusive focus on communities hosted by the ONElist service provides ONElist moderators and members with a number of unique benefits not found in competing services:

• User data is maintained securely. ONElist maintains all user and community data exclusively in a protected area where access is limited and monitored according to privacy policies such as those required by TRUSTe. In contrast, users who join 3rd party lists found through links or pointers on other e-mail list directories have little information about how their private data is handled, leaving them vulnerable to SPAM and other privacy intrusions.
• Centralized system administration ensures high performance and delivery speed/reliability. Because the same high-performance, highly scalable servers host all ONElist communities, users can expect to receive messages quickly and reliably. In addition, the multiple backups and replicated servers at ONElist ensure service availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In contrast, competing services hosting 3rd party e-mail lists cannot ensure the performance of outside lists using unknown hardware and software configurations.
• Reliable community directory. ONElist regularly updates its directory of communities; when communities are added or deleted, the directory is updated within minutes ensuring that users always find valid lists. In contrast, e-mail community services that aggregate lists from 3rd parties have no control over when those lists are created or modified, resulting in users frequently encountering lists that are outdated, dead or broken.
• Consistent usage guidelines for all communities. ONElist established a uniform set of community guidelines for all its lists, ensuring basic rules for behavior. By establishing set community standards, ONElist ensures that communities are built with respect for members. In contrast, 3rd party lists are free to set their own, less stringent, usage and privacy policies.
• Uniform interface to all community features. Users join ONElist for its flexible and powerful collection of services, and because those services are easy to use. A fundamental aspect of the ONElist service is an intuitive and consistent interface. Subscribing and unsubscribing from ONElist communities is always done with the same commands and interfaces, making it painless for users to quickly join or create new groups. In contrast, many of the 3rd party lists found at competing e-mail community directories offer varying degrees of usability, confronting users with arcane e-mail commands and difficult subscription/modification procedures.
• Complete services and features are available to all communities. ONElist members have free access to a complete set of community communication tools, including a group calendar, surveys, archives, shared files, and bookmark lists. All ONElist communities have access to the same collection of free tools, and all of these tools have the same interface. In contrast, users signing up for 3rd party lists using competing e-mail community directories have limited and varied access to features, making it difficult for users to remember what tools can be used with each community.

About ONElist
Launched in 1998, ONElist, Inc. is the world's leading provider of free e-mail list and group communication services for average users of the Internet. Ranked by Media Metrix as the most visited e-mail list community Web Service with over twice the reach of its nearest competitor, ONElist hosts over 180,000 lists, with members exchanging over 20 million e-mail messages daily. ONElist is based in San Mateo, Calif. and is privately held. The company has received venture funding from @Ventures III, the affiliated venture capital arm of CMGI, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMGI) and Bertelsmann Ventures, the independent venture capital fund of Bertelsmann AG. For more information, visit ONElist's Web site at http://www.onelist.com.