MADRID, April 30, 1997. Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion (TPI) has signed an agreement with AltaVista Internet Software, Inc., a subsidiary of Digital Equipment Corporation, under which the Spanish PTT has exclusive rights to establish a replica or "mirror site" of the super Internet search engine for the Iberian peninsula and Latin America.

The agreement will enable Telefonica to manage and run virtual advertising in this area and become the leader in the Spanish-language information and advertising market on the World Wide Web.

Under this agreement, AltaVista has licensed the use of its trademark, search engine software and database of Internet addresses to TPI to enable the PTT create in Spain a mirror of the search engine located in Palo Alto, Calif. Telefonica will also undertake commercial management, advertising sales and the establishment of agreements with other countries.

The service, which will come into operation before the summer, will allow Internet users who freely access the AltaVista Search Service to find information on the World Wide Web with instructions in Spanish or Portuguese - and later in other languages, including other official languages in Spain. TPI will manage and contract all advertising via the AltaVista Search engine.

In addition to facilitating Internet searches, TPI will commercialize advertising spots or "banners" (in the form of "billboards" which appear on the pages that guide the "navigator" in his/her search) placed by companies wanting to benefit from the Internet's exponential growth.

Worldwide advertising investment in search engines totaled $55 million in 1996 out of a total $110 million invested in advertising on Internet, according to data provided by Cowles/Simba Information. Overall advertising investment on the Internet already exceeds $400 million in 1997 and is forecast to reach $900 million in 1998, $1.37 billion in 1999 and $1.86 billion by the year 2000. During the same period the number of Internet users worldwide is expected to increase from 46 million this year to more than 150 million by the year 2000.

Multimedia development

Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion (TPI), founded in 1967 as a subsidiary of the Telefonica Group, is the largest publishing group in the country, publishing 15 million copies of the Yellow Pages each year and a further 15 million copies of the White Pages, which are issued every two or three years. However, the company is firmly committed to the development of various multimedia projects and products.

TPI also plans to take advantage of the Internet to launch new products and services such as Internet commerce and entertainment guides addressed for the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America markets while building revenue from existing channels such as Multimedia Yellow Pages.

At present, 50 percent of the pages visited on Internet are through search engines, of which Digital's AltaVista is one of the most highly used, with close to 31 million hits a day worldwide with an average user response time of only 0.7 seconds.

Using the AltaVista Search Service on the Internet

The "internaut" enters the topic on which information is sought and the AltaVista Search Service, which visits around 627,000 Internet servers each week in order to keep its information permanently updated, answers with a list of Web addresses related to the word entered. The index of this search engine includes 31 million Web pages and four million Usenet articles.

The TPI "mirror" search site in Spain is the fourth AltaVista mirror site to be established in the world. Other sites are managed by Telia in Sweden and Telstra in Australia. A third site, managed by Alam Teknocrat in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) will come into operation in the near future. In addition to running the system, all these companies also use the Search Service to commercialize advertising spots in the languages or dialects of the countries they cover.

AltaVista's vision is OnSite Computing -- leveraging the real benefit of the Internet's universal presence of being able to do business wherever you are. AltaVista's OnSite Computing solutions includes the AltaVista Search Network, AltaVista Search services and software, AltaVista Firewall and Tunnel security solutions, as well as NT-based directory, mail and library solutions, all providing secure, simple and direct access to information and people over the Internet and private Intranets. AltaVista Internet Software, Inc. is a Digital company. Further information is available at http://altavista.software.digital.com, or by calling 1-800-336-7890.

Media Contacts:
Eduardo Enterria
011-34-1-583-4387
Digital Spain