Internet borders are becoming increasingly important as the international online exchange of goods and services, sensitive information, and valuable content increases. As France creates laws to keep online Nazi content out of their country, Denmark loosens existing copyright laws to legalize music downloading, and the U.S. courts begin to hold companies liable for allowing web users to access restricted or illegal content (such as online gaming sites), more and more organizations are finding it necessary to monitor and control who can visit and use their web sites. These are just a few examples of why Internet mapping is crucial in today's business environment.

Companies conducting business on the web are now discovering that they can provide effective and efficient online services only if they have the same kind of data traditionally required for off-line practices. To serve this need, NetGeo's InfoScopeSM enables companies to transact over the Internet in compliance with the same rules and business methodologies that define their off-line operations.

Situation Analysis
To protect their digital media, respect licensing and distribution agreements, and obey regional legislation, companies will be obliged to deploy geo-location technology to filter out online users from particular geographic areas. This technology will become increasingly relevant as more content becomes available and more operations branch onto the Internet. The rich media market (video, voice, data) is expected to grow to $34 billion by 2004 (FAC/Equities), and the total market for enterprise streaming media use is expected to grow to $2.8 billion by 2005 (Jupiter Communications).

Significantly, companies are now being held responsible for the distribution of their online content. The Yahoo! France court case and another recent court case held MasterCard and Discover Card liable for allowing a man to use his credit cards for betting online despite the fact that he lived in a state that prohibits gambling.

The Solution
NetGeo's InfoScope software solution allows streaming media and other online content companies to understand who is visiting their web sites without the use of cookies or user registration. The solution creates a dynamic "map" of the Internet that provides information about a web user's country, state, city, organization, and method of Internet access, among other data. Using only a user's Internet Protocol (IP) address, InfoScope can determine the geographic location (country, state, city) of an individual web user. This information affords an online content provider the ability to block or allow access to an Internet broadcast based on that individual's physical location.

Case Study: Entriq
Entriq (formerly Mindport Sentriq) is the technology division of MIH Limited (Nasdaq:MIHL), a leading international television platform, Internet, and interactive technology company. Mindport delivers technology products and support services to broadband based pay media operators worldwide. Mindport is using NetGeo's InfoScope as part of its Media Asset Management solution in order to provide streaming-media customers with the highest level of media security. Mindport is using the technology to block visitors from certain countries from viewing particular streaming content.