WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 6, 1999--A strategic alliance aimed at testing a new system for "a-la-carte" news and information purchase from independent sources across the Internet with one-ID, one-bill, privacy-protecting simplicity was announced by COMTEX Scientific Corp. and Clickshare Service Corp.

"Publishers and other content providers are increasingly concerned about finding additional ways to generate revenue over the Internet," said Charles W. Terry, president and CEO of COMTEX. "We think the ability of the Clickshare technology to support one-bill, one-ID, one registration access and aggregated transactions will facilitate the proliferation, and acceptance of, higher value, not-free content."

The agreement between COMTEX and Clickshare is for a minimum of two years. The effort is intended to research what types of pricing and information appeal to general and specialized consumers. Publishers can enroll in Clickshare now.

Under the alliance, visitors to the web site address PUBSHARE.COM, will be able to purchase access to real-time news provided by COMTEX Custom Wires and COMTEX Newsroom, for a trial monthly fee of $1, plus an introductory rate of 5 cents for each story read -- or 50 cents for 20-minutes of unrestricted access. With the Clickshare Service, users will also soon be able to access music and specialized services using PUBSHARE.COM as their home base for billing and portal services.

Clickshare President Bill Densmore said the COMTEX alliance was the first of several relationships with publishers and Internet "audience owners" (ISPs, billing agents, affinity groups) to be finalized. "As a first partner, COMTEX is ideal because of its relationships with most of the world's premier information providers and because it can deliver in a single feed a broad base of consumer and business-oriented intelligence. From this base, we intend to build topic- and geographic-specific premium content for a growing base of information consumers."

An exclusive feature of Clickshare's patent-pending distributed user-management technology allows audience owners such as publishers, ISPs, telcos, banks and retailers to offer their customers Clickshare-enabled content, without having to turn over to Clickshare or content providers sensitive name, address or account information about their customers. This 'privacy-protected demographics' feature is unique," said Densmore.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PORTALS, BILLERS

"Clickshare allows net portals, financial institutions and other billing entities and publishers to make money and increase customer satisfaction," said Densmore. "Customers will be able to access information at any Clickshare-enabled site and pay for it via one bill to their home base. Clickshare service providers can confidently send their users to other web sites, without having to send the user's name, credit-card number or address at the same time."

"Beginning today, information consumers who want to use PUBSHARE.COM will register via an affiliate web site or can ask their existing ISP, portal or billing agent to offer Clickshare's one-bill access to information as an added benefit," said Densmore. Pricing and terms may vary by service provider, once a trial phase is completed.

"The relationship with Clickshare allows us to be part of the deployment of a new business model on the Internet," said Terry, and he continued by stating that, "COMTEX is pleased to be at the forefront of Clickshare's initiative."

About COMTEX

COMTEX is the leading wholesale aggregator, integrator and syndicator of value-added and real-time news sources for the world's leading financial and business-information distributors. Established in 1981, COMTEX was one of the early pioneers in the real-time news industry. COMTEX editors review over 12,000 stories every 24 hours from sources such as The Associated Press, The Canadian Press, United Press International, Kyodo News, Xinhua News Agency, ITAR-TASS, PC World, Newsbytes News Network, States News Service, CMP Media Inc., Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service and The Sports Network. Most are now available via PUBSHARE.COM.

COMTEX premium news is available through more than 100 distributors to millions of end-users in the Internet market, 200,000 personal investors, 400,000 Wall Street brokers and 900,000 business professionals in the corporate market. Based in Alexandria, Va., COMTEX can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.comtexnews.com/.

About Clickshare Service Corp.

Clickshare Service Corp. is pioneering the Internet's first distributed user-management service. It allows consumers one-ID, one-bill access, one-registration access to information and services from multiple web sites. Clickshare's patent-pending Digital Calling Card(SM) technology enables "privacy-protected demographics"(SM). With it, web sites can provide personalized service to visitors without having to obtain their name, address or sensitive credit-card or billing information.

With Clickshare, a user registers once at a favorite publisher, ISP, portal, telco, bank, utility, retailer or affinity-group web site and only that web site need ever know that user's private identity. Yet the user can surf to any other Clickshare-enabled site and purchase information, software, music or other objects on a per-click or subscription basis down to as little as five cents per item. Charges are applied to the user's statement at his home base web site.

Clickshare, formed in 1997 as a joint venture of two predecessor companies which together developed the technology, is a privately held Massachusetts startup. For information about joining or using The Clickshare Service to sell information online, contact the company or go to: http://www.clickshare.com/.

     CONTACT:  COMTEX
               Deborah Woolum Ikins, 703/820-2000
               dikins@comtexnews.com
                    or
               Clickshare Service Corp.
               Bill Densmore, 413/458-8001
               densmore@clickshare.com