SAN DIEGO, September 6, 2001 --- Anonymizer.com today announced the launch of "Operation Safe Investigation", a program designed to protect the anonymity of Law Enforcement and News Media professionals who use the Internet to aid their investigations, and to improve the effectiveness of their research.

Through this program, Anonymizer will contribute up to 25 user licenses for its premium Anonymous Surfing service to all qualifying law enforcement and news media organizations. Accounts are valid for 3 months, after which special pricing is available for program participants.

Anonymity is essential to safe and accurate information gathering on the web. Commonly-used technologies allow Web sites and other parties to collect extensive information about Web surfers, including user names, unique computer IP addresses, geographical location, Web sites previously visited, and more. In addition, Web sites can dynamically show different Web pages based who is visiting their site. That means an investigator could see one Web page, while the rest of the world sees a completely different page.

These technologies mean that savvy research subjects can identify unprotected investigators, track and profile their Web activities, and even serve them misleading information or launch attacks containing viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, or drive scans. For investigators in the field, personal safety also becomes a critical consideration.

Investigators can eliminate the risk with Anonymizer's Anonymous Surfing service. The service allows users to effectively remain invisible while surfing the Web, and protects them from the Web's most prevalent security and privacy threats. Anonymizer uses protected Privacy Servers to rewrite requested Web pages, a process that neutralizes threats like Cookies, Web Bugs, and scripting attacks, and that shields users' IP addresses and other sensitive information. The service has been used to protect nearly one billion Web pages since 1996.

Qualifications for the program, as well as an online application to receive free Anonymizer accounts, can be found at www.anonymizer.com/opsafe.