NetSTAR

TOKYO July 31, 2009

　TOKYO—July 31, 2009—NetSTAR, Inc., Japan’s premier developer of URL filtering product technologies and services, today announced the August 2009 release of a new URL list for home-use filtering based on new classification standards, such as the stratification of the communication field into four strata based on a site’s child friendliness.
　The list will first be adopted by Softbank Mobile, Inc., for use in their new services to be released on August 31, the Web Use Restrictions Service [Basic] and the Web Use Restrictions Service [Light], to provide better and stronger restrictions to certain websites based on the age of the user.

　In the past, filtering products and URL lists only recognized the individual external services such as bulletin boards, blogs, and SNS on sites that enable interactive communications. The evaluation of a site based on its child friendliness in terms of features and operation was not performed by filtering lists but was left to the children’s parents or guardians, who lack experience with communication sites.
　However, as broadband connections for computers and fixed-rate packet services for mobile phones become more common, many children are using such communications sites. As a result, there have been incidents in which evil-intentioned adults have lured children out to a meeting place and inflicted serious bodily harm on them, or children have been exposed to adult content or dating sites through inappropriate advertising on other sites or links embedded in messages.

　This new categorization standard produced by NetSTAR takes the bulletin boards, blogs, SNS and similar communications sites that had traditionally been grouped into the single communications category and ranks them into four categories that range from “not child friendly, adults only” to “very child friendly,” based on the functions and management of the site. This enables parents and guardians to easily select the level of access restriction appropriate for the maturity of their children and the risk tolerance of their household.
　These new categories take into consideration the results of feedback from the PTA, NPOs, and parents and guardians as well as the research results released in December 2008 by the Child Internet Use Research Council titled “Risk Assessment Model for Interactive Communications Websites.”
　In the process of revising this standard, categories were combined, reorganized, and renamed to make it easier to select the right category when using filtering products and lists intended for home use.

　URL lists based on this new categorization standard will first be incorporated into the Softbank services that will be released on August 31, but they are also scheduled to be released to all NetSTAR’s partners for use in their home-use filtering products and services, along with the existing URL lists. It will also become available for use in the home-use filtering services that NetSTAR operates.

　NetSTAR will continue to study the expectations of parents and guardians and changes in the environment while providing filtering related products and services that contribute to the creation of an environment in which children can acquire Internet skills that will help them fully develop their innate abilities.

New Categorization Standards Table
　Please see the reference materials regarding the new categorization standards table. (reference materials in Japanese only)

About NetSTAR, Inc, and URL Lists
　NetSTAR specializes in the development of URL filtering software and services, and in the collection, categorization, and delivery of URL lists. NetSTAR URL lists are used in a number of market-leading products like InterSafe by Alps System Integration Co., Ltd., and InterScan and WebManager by Trend Micro Incorporated.  Recognized for its high performance and low false positive rate, our products are number one (*1) among large companies with strict quality requirements, including approximately 60% of prefectural governments, 40% of central governments, and 40% of the companies in the Nikkei Excellent Company Ranking. We also have a greater than 40% share of the market nationwide. (*2)
　NetSTAR's URL lists are now being used in security appliance products and routers for small- and medium-size businesses, and many individual customers are using them through our home-use filtering services. Over the years, NetSTAR has gained much recognition for the broad applicability of its individual URL lists as well as the quality and reliability of its collection, categorization, and delivery processes. NetSTAR’s URL lists for filtering services are the only lists that have been adopted by all mobile phone operators in Japan. (*3)

*1. Based on NetSTAR's research*2. according to Fuji Chimera Research Institute *3. we distribute new lists daily for use in the filtering systems of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank Mobile, WILLCOM, and EMOBILE.

General inquiries about this press release
　NetSTAR Customer Relations
Tel:  03-5795-4858 (Monday through Friday, 10:00 to 17:00),  E-mail: info@netstar-inc.com

　NetSTAR is a registered trademark of NetSTAR, Inc. Other products and company names are the registered trademarks of their respective companies.