FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 2006

MailGuard's web filtering service finds sweet spot with Australian businesses

MailGuard partners with Rulespace to filter pornography and violence

MailGuard, Australia's first and leading provider of managed email anti-virus, anti-spam, content filtering and email archiving solutions for the business market, has announced enhancements to its managed web filtering service, WebGuard, launched 12 months ago.

"We launched WebGuard at CeBIT last year and, 12 months on, we are overwhelmed with enquiries by companies asking us to help them control what their people can browse, download, and when; as well as keeping the organisation safe from web viruses, junk, and offensive downloads or browsing activity," said Andrew Johnson, MailGuard's Director of Marketing.

Johnson adds that businesses and IT departments need to be prepared. He says that MailGuard recommends setting up a procedure for dealing with the 'stuff' before it happens in the same way that reporting sexual harassment is approached. In addition to such services as WebGuard, best practices should include letting employees know what to do if they encounter child pornography and making it known that violations will be reported to law enforcement.

"WebGuard eliminates web browsing abuse, offensive or pornographic browsing and time wasting," said Johnson. "WebGuard is managed through a secure web console, and produces easy to read daily and weekly reports as well as managing and logging people's access to the Internet using content filtering rules and lists of sites to be allowed or blocked. Email or SMS alerts allow the administrator to be notified immediately of excessive or inappropriate use."

MailGuard says industries quick to implement the service include the retail sector, professional services and local councils. Today, companies using the WebGuard service comprise Melbourne Zoo, JG King Group, Autobarn, Bakers Delight, JB HI-FI, Willow Ware, City of Greater Geelong and Dunhill Recruitment.

The JG King Group is the largest home builder in regional Victoria and the largest manufacturer of steel frames in Australia. The company has been building steel frame homes for over 20 years and is the winner of multiple HIA & MBA awards

Andy Michelis, JG King Homes IT Manager said, "With 160 employees accessing the Internet daily as part of their work, we have been looking for a solution to the rapid growth of inappropriate material on the web. Many of these sites not only display inappropriate material, but are also vectors for the delivery of spyware and trojan horses. The damage these sites do in terms of lost productivity, computer damage, privacy and identity theft, fraud and liability is well understood, and substantial. Today, WebGuard's automated web content recognition technology is helping us keep pace with the explosion of web content, instantly recognise web content and facilitate the delivery of relevant web information."

Willow Ware Australia Pty Ltd, manufacturer of coolers, storage, refuse and bake ware, has been using WebGuard for the last 15 months and formed part of early trials.

Roger Evans, Willow Ware IT Manager said, "The service has given us an opportunity to manage what our 130 employees are actually doing without being big brother. We simply use the console to manage access to the web by user, file types, key words and sites by individual, group or company wide rules as required. With WebGuard's integration of the Rulespace site categorisation technology, we now have the ability for the reports to show browsing by category, and to be able to pro-actively block sites by categories such as gambling, violence and any sexually explicit material. WebGuard has also assisted our HR department by providing a responsible approach to the working environment as well as protecting our organisation from potential litigation."

Evans adds that the enhanced version has delivered a better reporting structure. "Activity is captured visually through graphs and pie charts and I see what is happening virtually instantaneously now saving me a good deal of time in going through written reports. From a management point of view, senior executives get an immediate clear picture of activity. The history reporting structure has become significantly more flexible allowing me to go back through historical logs of previous months in greater detail to assist with trends and patterns that may be occurring."

MailGuard also launched its CaptureMail managed service at CeBIT 2006. The web based service allows organisations to archive, search and retrieve emails at the click of a button through a secure web management console from anywhere in the world.

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Issued by Rivers of Communication
On behalf of MailGuard

Media enquiries
Craig McDonald, Director of Strategy, MailGuard, tel: +61 3 9694 4444
Dolores Diez, Rivers of Communication, tel: +61 3 9572 4552 / 0417 330 881
email: dolores@riversofcom.com