Yahoo! to Feature Digital's Altavista Search Service in its Internet Guide

Yahoo! users to gain dramatic improvements in WWW search performance

Sunnyvale, Calif. and Maynard, Mass. -- June 5, 1996 -- Yahoo! Inc. and Digital Equipment Corporation today announced the signing of a letter of intent to provide Digital's AltaVista World Wide Web search service to users of Yahoo!'s Internet guide. Upon signing the definitive multi-year agreement, Yahoo! would feature AltaVista as its preferred search engine, with the results displayed on the Yahoo! web site. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Yahoo! users would continue to experience Yahoo!'s popular look and feel, directory services, unique content and search results, while gaining the benefits of AltaVista's powerful, comprehensive performance for searching the World Wide Web.

"Our strategy is to continue to partner with experts who can enhance the Yahoo! user experience," said Tim Koogle, President and CEO, Yahoo! Inc. "Working with Digital will allow Yahoo! to continue to deliver the best consumer Internet guide for years to come. Digital has the commitment and global presence to continue to develop AltaVista, which is important as Yahoo! expands internationally," he continued. Yahoo! recently created Yahoo! Japan, Yahoo!Europe, and Yahoo! Canada.

"We are pleased that AltaVista is recognized as the search engine of choice among Internet users," said Ilene H. Lang, vice president of Digital's Internet Software Business Unit. "This reflects our commitment to enhance the experience of Internet users at our own web site and at other popular sites. Working with Yahoo! enables us to reach a broader audience of users, especially in the consumer market where Yahoo! is the clear leader. It is an example of our strategy to help make the Internet more productive by making it dramatically easier to find useful information," she continued.

With the largest web index, Digital's AltaVista Search Service (http://altavista.digital.com) provides extremely fast and comprehensive results. It has been the top-rated search engine in many computing industry and user reviews and has won numerous awards, including the CeBIT 1996 web site of the year, Internet World magazine's 1996 industry award for outstanding service and the 1996 C|NET award for best Internet tool.

Yahoo! has become the industry leader in terms of number of users, traffic, number of advertisers and brand recognition. The Yahoo! hierarchical index or directory includes over 260,000 web sites and is updated daily by a team of "surfers," who review and catalog sites in a consistent, organized manner. This human intervention sets Yahoo! apart from automated search engines, and provides high-quality results with simple and intuitive site descriptions.

In addition to providing users with faster and more complete information, the arrangement between the two companies would allow Yahoo! to offer advertisers an option to place ads on all AltaVista search results appearing on its site.

Yahoo! Inc., (NASDAQ: YHOO) offers a globally-branded Internet navigational service that is among the most widely-used guides to information and discovery on the web. Yahoo! provides a context-based directory structure for Internet resources, as well as a web-wide search engine that is seamlessly integrated with the Yahoo! directory service. Yahoo! is one of the most visible and recognizable brands associated with the Internet. The company is continuing to develop a family of Yahoo!-branded media properties in targeted demographic (Yahooligans!, a web guide for kids), geographic (Yahoo! Japan, Yahoo! Germany, Yahoo! UK, Yahoo! France, Yahoo! Canada), and interest areas (Yahoo! Internet Life: the magazine and website, and Yahoo! Computing). Yahoo! Inc. is located in Sunnyvale, California. Yahoo! can be found at http://www.yahoo.com/.

AltaVista software solutions from Digital provide high performance Internet connectivity to help cyberworkers quickly find useful information, easily communicate and collaborate over secure virtual networks, and transparently manage the remote computing environment. Further information is available at http://altavista.software.digital.com.

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Intel and Alpha platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.

# # #

NOTE FOR EDITORS: Digital, the Digital logo and AltaVista are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Digital Press Contacts:
Dave Price
508-486-2846
dave.price@ljo.dec.com

Cheryl Delgreco
617-266-8400
cdelgreco@hi-tech.com

Yahoo! Press Contacts:
Skye Ketonen
NRG Public Relations
415-615-7905
skye@nrgpr.com

Karen Edwards
Director of Brand Management
408-328-3311
karen@yahoo-inc.com

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.
All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.