Sunday, Oct 12 2008

1. USER CONVENIENCE -- The user maintains one account relationship and must remember only one password, while retaining unimpeded access to a universe of information -- whether free, by subscription or charged by the page-- from Clickshare-enabled content providers.

2. PUBLISHER INDEPENDENCE -- Independent information providers each maintain their own base of customers or subscribers as well as physical control of their copyrighted information. This makes updating, pricing, user tracking and personalization simple and locally based.

3. ADVERTISING VALIDATION -- The Clickshare service collects "log" records of visits by unique users to all Clickshare-enabled information, whether print, audio, graphical or software applets. This information, which belongs to the user's Clickshare Service Provider, not to Clickshare, may be provider subject to user-privacy agreements to advertisers as a form of third-party validation of content viewership claims. Advertisers may obtain the actual names of Clickshare users only from the user's chosen Clickshare Service Provider (only for individual users who consent to the release of this information).

4. PERSONAL PRIVACY -- Sensitive name, address and credit information is stored at the user's independent Clickshare Service Provider (see privacy). This information never traverses the Internet during information-browsing sessions. The Clickshare service knows users only by their home service provider and a randomly-generated user ID number. There is no central database of user names and only the user's chosen Clickshare Service Provider can associate a name with a user ID.

5. NO SPECIAL SOFTWARE ESSENTIAL -- End-user software is not required. Standard web-browser software from is all a user needs to enroll at a Clickshare Service Provider, although some aspects of more recent "browser" technology may enhance the user experience. Clickshare works within industry standards, thus imposing no proprietary modifications to the Internet environment. The system does not require persistent "cookies."

6. NO CREDIT CARDS ON NET -- The user's home service provider acquires credit-card information about the user using an industry-standard, SSL-encrypted link. Once this information resides securely in a off-line database, the user typically provides a standard ID and password combination to begin a Clickshare session. Only at settlement time, using an off-line protocol, is it necessary to relate information purchases to the user's credit account. No credit-card numbers move across Clickshare.