Net
Shepherd is teaming with Digital Equipment Corporation’s AltaVista search service to provide
Internet ratings and categories.
“As a result of the successful demonstration of Net Shepherd’s filtered
search technology, AltaVista has decided to continue its direct support for
a production scale filtered search service,” said Don Sandford, CEO of Net
Shepherd.
The agreement contemplated in the signed Letter of Intent provides for Net
Shepherd to engage its worldwide Internet rating community in the ongoing
rating and categorization of Internet content. AltaVista intends to license
and use the Net Shepherd database of rated content.
The Letter of Intent provides that the parties will negotiate a definitive
agreement by April 9, 1998. The agreement is for a twelve month period with
automatic renewal every twelve months thereafter. The agreement is subject
to performance conditions and may be canceled upon 30 days notice.
Net Shepherd and AltaVista will develop an engineering plan for the required
hardware and software components of the agreement. Key criteria of the
agreement include: performance, scalability, and reliability of the fully
operational system.
“The use of filtered and categorized Internet content in conjunction with
our search service holds tremendous potential for opening new applications
of this technology” commented Abe Hirsch, Director of Web Business
Development at Digital’s AltaVista Search Service.