NetSTAR

TOKYO January 24th, 2008

NetSTAR Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Noboru Ogahara; hereinafter “NetSTAR”), the leading company in the Japanese web filtering industry, hereby announces it will join the “Unsolicited Email Information Sharing Association”, a new organization to be established by the Nippon Information Communications Association (Executive Director: Futoshi Shirai) within its existing Anti-spam E-mail Consultation Center. This action will allow NetSTAR to enhance its URL list for filtering email, a service NetSTAR has been providing to mobile phone companies since 2005 for their unsolicited email filtering services.

The Nippon Information Communications Association has used unsolicited email information reported by the general public to its Anti-spam E-mail Consultation Center to take action against senders violating the law. URL information contained in unsolicited email and mobile phone-based chain mail provided by the general public has been available to NetSTAR and a selection of other companies involved in the unsolicited email filtering industry since May of 2007.
The Anti-spam E-mail Consultation Center will establish the “Unsolicited E-mail Sharing Association” to start providing outside companies with more detailed information on unsolicited email. This association will revamp the way it receives information from the general public and the system that allows other companies to share the information.

Since 2005, NetSTAR has been providing its URL lists to mobile phone companies who provide their customers with website filtering services. NetSTAR uses “decoy” terminals and dedicated websites (such as http://meiwaku.jp) to collect unsolicited email samples from the general public at large.
NetSTAR has been working with the Anti-spam E-mail Consultation Center from an early stage, even before the center started providing information in 2007, by validating the center’s URL information, and incorporating this information into NetSTAR’s process for the collection, categorization, and distribution of its URL lists.
NetSTAR considers the information it receives from the Anti-spam E-mail Consultation Center effective in collecting unsolicited email samples on a broader range which prompted their decision to join the new association at an early stage.

NetSTAR will continue to work with partner companies to develop alliances and services for unsolicited email filtering through the provision of its URL lists while remaining committed to the global community to make Internet access safe for everyone, and for any terminal, be it a computer, mobile phone, or game console.

Use of URL lists for unsolicited email filtering
NetSTAR has been providing categorized URL lists to SoftBank Mobile (formerly Vodafone) for their “URL Linked Email Filtering” service launched in February 2005, and to NTT DoCoMo for their “URL Linked Email Filtering” service launched in April 2007.
Both services detect email containing URL links to dating sites, and sites with adult and illegal content and stop them while the email resides on the mobile phone company’s server so that it never reaches the mobile phones of its customers. Both companies provide this service to customers on request, free of charge.
The collection, categorization, and registration of URLs in unsolicited email for mobile phones requires special knowledge because the URLs often resolve to different contents when accessed by a mobile phone as opposed to a computer. NetSTAR has established and continues to operate Japan’s largest URL research center for filtering personal computer access to the web. Since 2004, NetSTAR has led the industry by being the first company to deploy specialized teams for mobile phones working non-stop, 365 days a year.NetSTAR will also continue to commit to the global community by making Internet access safe for everyone, and for any terminal, be it a computer, mobile phone, or game console.

　

■ About NetSTAR, Inc.
NetSTAR specializes in the development of URL filtering engine technology, and in the collection, categorization, and delivery of URL lists.
Its URL lists boasts the largest market share in Japan for corporate filtering products, at well over 40%, and are also used by home filtering services provided by ISPs and broadband routers. Four mobile and handy phone companies (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI au, SoftBank Mobile, and Willcom) use these URL lists to provide customers with URL filtering services to protect minors from harmful websites, a service that is drawing increasingly more attention. For more information, visit http://netstar.jp

■ Contact Information for URL List Provision to Manufacturers and Service Providers
Product Business Dept, NetSTAR, Inc.
Email: partner@netstar-inc.com

■ Trademark Information
NetSTAR is a trademark or registered trademark of NetSTAR, Inc. All other product names and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.