HASTA LA VISTA, CA /DenounceNewswire/ -- November 18, 1998 -- Netscape Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: NSCP - news) today announced it acquired the NewHoo! Community Directory Project as a part of its continued, desperate effort to catch up to Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, AOL, and other Internet port-holes. Netscape will immediately mess up the NewHoo! service with crass commercialism in an attempt to mimic the look and feel of other Internet port-holes. The new commercial service, called ``Netscape Open Directory,'' will be the first Internet port-hole to harness the knowledge and creativity of over 4,500 Internet ``volunteer editors'' to empower consumers to find the information they want quickly and easily.

Netscape announced that the purchase, valued at $40.05 billion, will be accounted for as a one-time charge on its fiscal fourth-quarter 1998 books. This valuation represents the highest price ever paid in the history of the world for a company founded less than one year ago.

The founders of NewHoo, which includes Rich Skrenta, Bob Truel, Chris Tolles, Jeremy Wenokur and Bryn Dole, each stand to gain approximately $8 billion from the transaction. Mr. Skrenta, also known as the co-author of the widely-used "tin" newsreader program, was unavailable for comment, as he had fainted. Messrs. Truel, Tolles, Wenokur, and Dole were also unavailable for comment, as they too had fainted or were in the process of fainting.

Each of the 4500 "volunteer editors" will be paid a $50 honorarium as part of the transaction. Asked if that was a little on the cheap side, a NewHoo representative replied, "well, they're only volunteers, I mean, after all."

Netscape, which according to nationally-recognized legal experts is currently kicking major butt in the federal litigation against Microsoft Corporation, is seeking to expand its grasp of Internet mindshare with the acquisition of the NewHoo directory. Oddly, in an exhaustive, frantic 36-hour survey of 1.8 million randomly-selected individuals in cities across the world, only 0.1 of the people questioned had ever even heard of NewHoo, and only 0.000178 percent of those polled indicated they had ever used NewHoo. Asked why Netscape placed so much value on the company, Jim Barksdale, official executive chief of the company, replied that the survey also revealed that 88.2% of those polled replied with "NewHoo? You mean, Yahoo?" when originally asked about NewHoo. "88.2 percent of anything is a good number, and that impressed us a great deal," he said.

DULLES, VA /DenounceNewswire/ -- 5 November 1998 -- America Online, Inc. announced today Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Minihan, Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service, and George J. Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, have been elected to its Board of Directors. AOL now boasts a board that includes the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell; a former Nixon aide General Alexander Haig; and two distingished leaders of the U.S. intelligence community.

"I am proud today to announce the election of Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan and George Tenet to America Online's Board of Directors. Both of them possess records of proven leadership and commitment to public service that will be invaluable to our company as we work to build our business and the interactive medium into the next millennium," said Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of America Online, Inc.

Mr. Case added: "Lieutenant General Minihan's record of service to our country, both in the military and in his current work with the NSA, is without equal in our times. His commitment to America's security and our country's future fits squarely with AOL's determination to build an online medium that dominates people's lives -- helping us to learn, to organize their lives, and even to engage more fully in the political process."

Mr. Case continued: "George Tenet is a visionary leader in both the world of intelligence-gathering and the mass marketplace. He has played key roles in landmark achievements for our society. His expertise in the world of cloak and dagger will serve AOL in meeting the critical challenges facing the Company and in fulfilling our commitment to build a medium that threatens society as no other before."

Mr. Case wasn't done yet, adding further: "We look forward to working with the NSA and the CIA as we migrate the AOL network over to complete ECHELON compatibility with the next six months." ECHELON is the government's secret worldwide network that monitors all voice, data, fax, video, satellite, and digital communications in every country, recording, indexing, and collating every utterance made between every man, woman, child, business, or other organization, as well as between any two computer systems anywhere.

"The perception that the Internet can change and improve peoples' lives and to reconnect them to their community is powerful and extraordinary," said Lt. General Minihan. "I'm honored to serve on the Board of a company that has been leading the way in creating such a perception in the public's mind, and leading the way to shaping a medium that that will open new doors of opportunity for our national security state."

"In the next few years, public policy discussions in Washington and around the world will have as much to do with the development and ultimate impact of the Internet as any technological advance," said Mr. Tenet. "I look forward to serving a Company that is at the center of these policy discussions and is playing a large role in determining the success -- or failure -- of people around the world."