Gaggle Upgrades their Anti-Pornography Scanner (APS) by Replacing Existing Solution with VIMA’s ImageFilter™

"When it came time to renew, we became convinced that the performance and flexibility of VIMA’s ImageFilter made it the best value for us and for our clients."

Santa Barbara, CA - October 21st, 2005 - VIMA Technologies announced today that Gaggle, Inc., of Bloomington, Illinois signed a multi-year contract to use VIMA’s industry leading ImageFilter™ Library in their free and subscription email service to block objectionable images in email messages or attachments and URLs that point to pornographic web sites. Gaggle provides K thru 12 schools with email and web services that protect students and teachers by making the Internet available without the fear of inappropriate access to objectionable content such as pornography.

"We’re in a highly competitive market with high standards. We had been using a different product, but when it came time to renew, we became convinced that the performance and flexibility of VIMA’s ImageFilter made it the best value for us and for our clients", explained Jeff Patterson, President of Gaggle.

"We’re delighted to be part of Gaggle’s team to deliver K though 12 secondary school students the power of the Internet while avoiding the pitfalls. Gaggle saves teachers, students, and parents a lot of anxiety by delivery on the promise of the Internet in an age-appropriate way", added David Telleen-Lawton, president of VIMA Technologies. "Increasingly, VIMA has been successful in demonstrating to prospective customers that our reputation for being the fastest, most accurate, and most resource efficient solution for blocking unwanted images is deserved. Once we got the chance to compete for Gaggle’s business, we replaced the incumbent and negotiated a contract that was advantageous to both companies and most importantly, Gaggle’s customers", explained Telleen-Lawton.

Gaggle provides free and subscription email accounts as well as other communication services to secondary schools and their students nationwide. Gaggle’s hosted solution means school districts do not have to budget and administer email and other systems that have high student activity and can concentrate their IT resources on administrative systems. Gaggle is the only school email service that has APS (Anti-Pornography Scanner) technology that not only filters for inappropriate words, but can find and block inappropriate images.

About Gaggle.Net
Gaggle.net is dedicated to providing safe communication tools for K12 schools. The Gaggle.Net service was launched in September 1999 and since that time over 13,000 schools have signed up for Gaggle's safe, teacher controlled email accounts. Gaggle's web-based email is offered to schools as both a free advertising supported version and a subscription version. In addition to email, Gaggle offers teacher-controlled message boards, filtered chat rooms, online digital lockers, and many other features. The Gaggle subscription version is an E-Rate Priority One eligible service. For more information please visit www.Gaggle.net or call 800-288-7750.

About VIMA Technologies, Inc.
VIMA’s patented image search and image categorization processes allow it to lead the industry in content-based image search and categorization for both speed and accuracy. VIMA is probably best known for offering the only active learning image search solution in the market and the only company offering tunable image categorization and filtering solutions. VIMA Technologies, Inc. is a privately-held company located in Goleta, California, just across the street from the University of California at Santa Barbara. For more information, visit: www.VIMAtech.com.

VIMA Technologies, Inc. is located at 120 Cremona Drive, Goleta, California 93117.
You can reach us by telephone at 805-685-7067 or via email at info@VIMAtech.com.

For Media Inquiries, contact:

David Telleen-Lawton
Phone: (805)685-7067
Fax: (805)685-2178
DTL@VIMAtech.com