SurfControl Launches Powerful New Categorization SDK and Version 4.0 of Industry Leading Content Filtering Engine SDK

Business Wire, Feb 20, 2002

Business/Technology Editors

CONGLETON, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2002

New Offerings Further Extend Content Filtering Options for OEMs

SurfControl plc, the number one Internet filtering company in the global security market, has launched Categorization SDK, a software developer's toolkit that delivers powerful website categorisation technology to OEMs.

The company also announced the latest version of its leading OEM solution, Content Filtering Engine SDK.

SurfControl's Categorization SDK allows OEMs to integrate content categorisation functionality into their own products and services, including ISP services, firewalls and proxy servers, search engines and a range of Internet enabled devices.

Its key features are:

- C Application Programming Interface

- Categorisation of websites using the SurfControl Content Database

The Categorization SDK provides a programmatic interface to SurfControl's comprehensive Content Database. This enables OEM developers to easily restrict or allow URLs based on specific categories, delivering a high level of flexibility. Speed and scalability are crucial in the Internet filtering environment, and the Categorization SDK has been benchmarked to categorise in excess of 14,000 requests per second. The new product also offers a utility to enable speed to be tested in the product environment.

The Content Filtering Engine SDK v4.0 enables integration of SurfControl's market-leading content filtering technology into a range of third-party solutions. Enhancements include more than 1 million additional categorised URLs, taking SurfControl's Content Database to more than 3.5 million websites covering more than 700 million web pages. Classified into 40 distinct categories, the Content Filtering Engine SDK v4.0 offers increased granularity and flexibility for OEMs.

Nick Outteridge, director of OEM technology partnerships at SurfControl, commented: "The demand for hosted Internet filtering services is growing. For home surfers, family-friendly parental controls are becoming increasingly important in selecting an ISP, and corporates are increasingly committed to supporting productive use of their Internet resources. SurfControl has been at the forefront of responsible Internet use for more than ten years, and our Categorization SDK and Content Filtering Engine SDK products have been developed to enable OEMs to take advantage of the opportunities."

The rapidly increasing uptake of Internet access deals, confirmed by the recent report from the Office of National Statistics which showed an 11.5% increase in Internet subscriptions since January 2001, is creating a strong demand for centrally hosted content filtering services. OEMs are pursuing ways to add value to their Internet products and services, and SurfControl's OEM solutions have been developed to enable third parties to take advantage of the opportunity and differentiate their offerings.

About SurfControl - The Internet Filtering Company

SurfControl plc (London:SRF/NASDAQ Europe:SRFC), is the Number One Internet Filtering company in the global security market. The SurfControl family of products employs expert filtering, Pass-Through, and Pass-By technologies to create a productive Internet environment in the workplace and a child safe environment on the Internet at home and at school.

This comprehensive line of Internet monitoring and policy management solutions includes SuperScout Web Filter - the market leader in Internet productivity in the corporation; SuperScout Email Filter - managing content security; CyberPatrol - the market leader in responsible Internet usage in the home and at school; and the SurfControl Content Filtering SDK - the proven filtering solution for ISPs, Search Engines, Internet Appliances and ASPs.

SurfControl works with a variety of industry partners such as AT&T, Check Point Software (NASDAQ:CHKP), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HWP), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), and Microsoft Corp.'s Web TV (NASDAQ: MSFT).

SurfControl employs more than 350 people worldwide and has 8 offices: in the USA, in California and Massachusetts; in the UK, in Manchester and London; Rotterdam, Holland; Vienna, Austria; Frankfurt, Germany and Sydney, Australia.

For further information and news on SurfControl, please visit http://www.surfcontrol.com.