For Immediate Release - December 20, 1995 Contact: Sameer Parekh sameer@c2.org 510-601-9777 COMMUNITY CONNEXION PIONEERS PRIVATE ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Community ConneXion today announced a new service for its customers which will make secure, private electronic commerce more accessible to all merchants, from the small single-person business to large corporations trying to sell goods and services over the world-wide-web. The new service allows its customers to accept ecash, an anonymous, secure electronic payment system, developed by DigiCash bv, of Amsterdam, Holland and implemented with US Dollars by Mark Twain Bank, of St. Louis, Missouri. Customers can setup web pages on their web sites and charge websurfers from pennies to dollars per page when viewing their sites. The technology allows anyone on the Internet to become a merchant, selling goods and services electronically. Community ConneXion's President, Sameer Parekh, commented on the new development, "Before we unveiled this service, it was rather difficult for a merchant to offer content on the web in exchange for private, secure payment. Our system allows our customers to add simple configuration directives to their web pages in order to start charging for them." Information about Community ConneXion's ecash merchant support is available on their webserver at http://www.c2.org/ecash/. Ecash is the only strongly private payment system available on the net today. "All other consumer payment systems on the net are strongly linked with the old-fashioned and outdated credit card system," said Parekh. Ecash provides full payor anonymity and protects against fraud using strong cryptographic protocols developed by David Chaum, Managing Director of DigiCash. "Community ConneXion continues to lead the world toward a more efficient model of commerce on the Internet" said Frank Trotter, III, Mark Twain Bank International Markets Division Director and Ecash project leader. "Integration of an Ecash payment mechanism into the site is a giant step toward allowing business and research to function and support itself efficiently. We look forward to the continued leadership in innovation from Community ConneXion." Community ConneXion has been a supporter of ecash since its inception in October of 1995, becoming the first internet provider in the world to start accepting ecash as payment for services, less than one month after the payment system was announced. Community ConneXion, founded in June of 1994, is the leading provider of privacy on the Internet. They provide anonymous and pseudonymous internet access and web pages in addition to powerful web services, virtual hosts, and web design consultation. Information is available from their web pages at http://www.c2.org/. Information about the Mark Twain Bank ecash release is available from http://www.marktwain.com/ecash.html. DigiCash and ecash are trademarks of DigiCash bv. Mark Twain Bank is a trademark of Mark Twain Bancshares.