Significant Patent To Be Issued for Lycos' Intelligent "Spider" Technology

Patent establishes proprietary rights to Lycos’ spidering technique

September 2, 1997— Framingham, Mass. — Premier Personal Internet Guide Lycos, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for the patent application filed by Carnegie Mellon University covering Lycos’ pioneering spider technology. Lycos has the exclusive rights to this technology. The patent will acknowledge the proprietary nature of the Lycos spider currently in use indexing the World Wide Web.

The patent covers the spidering technology so widely used on the Internet. The technology enables Web users to gather targeted information from the world’s estimated 30 million different Web sites, and their hundreds of millions of subsidiary pages. Spiders are the cornerstone of today’s search, directory and indexing products deployed throughout the Web. "Without spidering technology, virtually no one would be able to navigate the Web as freely as they do today," said Robert J. Davis, Lycos President and CEO. "We’re proud to have helped pioneer spidering technology and to now be at the forefront of an industry which brings so much valuable information to so many people with that technology."

The Lycos "spiders," or automated software robots which crawl the WWW collecting information about sites, were originally used by Dr. Michael Mauldin to create one of the Web’s first searchable indices at Carnegie Mellon University. Dubbed Lycos (from the Latin for "wolf spider"), the service quickly grew in popularity as the increasing numbers of Web users found a growing need for an efficient and effective way to find Web-based information for their research and recreation.

Spiders are widely recognized as one of the key technologies which have made the Internet’s vast resources accessible to end users by collecting and organizing information into searchable databases. Without them, the wells of data located on Internet-connected machines worldwide would be nearly impossible for average users to find. The patent covers two important areas of spider technology: that which uses an intelligent, heuristic method to determine which sites to spider; and using Web site "popularity" as a determinant.

"I’m very pleased to have watched what began as a research project become a global information network," said Lycos Chief Scientist Michael Mauldin, Ph.D. "The award of this patent on the spidering technology at the heart of the Lycos service really reinforces the Lycos vision of delivering the Internet’s true promise directly to users. It helps give every Internet user easy access to the vast information resources stored there."

Lycos’ searching technology has long been a leader in the category, providing Internet searchers with fast, easy methods of finding sites that are most important to their particular area of interest. One of the most popular free services on the Internet around the world today, Lycos offers users the ability to search through more than 100 million URLs in addition to a host of other information resources such as classified advertisements, yellow and white page listings, road maps, stock prices and portfolio tracking, corporate data, and much more. The recent introduction of the popular Lycos Web Guides allows users to find information from a variety of resources grouped together under topic headings. Lycos has earned tremendous worldwide popularity, and in a drive toward worldwide expansion has in the last several weeks established nearly a dozen localized services in Europe through joint-venture company Lycos-Bertelsmann, making the Lycos network the largest in Europe.

With more than 400 advertising clients using the Lycos.com site to bring their messages to Internet users worldwide (a 150% increase over the previous year), and some 30 additional companies aligned with Lycos in technology license or other partnerships, Lycos is not only one of the Web’s most recognized brands, but also one of the Web’s most sought-after partners. Lycos recently reported a 324% increase in earnings to $22.3 million for fiscal year 1997. In the fourth quarter of 1997, the company generated positive cash of nearly $4 million, and now estimates its audience to be 15 million individuals worldwide. The year also saw Lycos forge new partnerships with three of the world’s largest media companies, Bertelsmann AG, Viacom and Time Warner, and more than double its employee base in 12 months.

Lycos, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCOS) is a rapidly expanding, global Internet navigation center, dedicated to helping the increasing number of online users locate, retrieve and manage relevant information on the Internet and World Wide Web. Lycos’ free navigational-assistance services -- located on the Web at http://www.lycos.com -- afford users with personalized, ease-of-life information tools, such as TOP 5%, a Directory of Web site reviews voted #1 by Internet World Magazine, StockFind and GTE Yellow Pages.

In addition to offering its world-renowned Lycos search and spidering technology covering more than 100 million URLs, Lycos offers 18 Lycos WebGuides -- Internet activity centers housed within the Lycos service providing a broad range of key information resources. Headquartered in Framingham, Mass., Lycos maintains U.S. offices in New York City, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and international offices in Germany, Italy and France.

CMG Information Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMGI) is a majority shareholder in Lycos, Inc. through its strategic investment and development business unit, CMG@Ventures. CMGI is a leading provider of direct-marketing services investing in and integrating advanced Internet, interactive media and database management technologies.

(c) Lycos© 1994-1997 Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved. Lycos is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University. All other product or service marks mentioned herein are those of respective owners.