The new free service from BT Ireland called BT Secure Mail will enable their web mail users to easily identify legitimate and secured e-mail from certified senders by the presence of a secure icon along with the sender's logo in the inbox of BT Ireland's web mail clients, which include oceanfree.net and iol.ie.

"BT Ireland is the first Internet Service Provider, not only in Ireland but in Europe, to launch Brandmail Solutions' proactive service to thwart phishing and email scams and to enrich the user's internet experience in such a unique way," said Peter Evans, Product Director, BT Ireland. "Our research has consistently shown that safety and security online are among the biggest concerns for customers and today we are addressing those concerns by providing a value add security service for free."

Every message that is sent through the Brandmail service is scanned and embedded with a cryptographically secure token. These tokens are detected by BT Ireland, identified and verified, before the message is delivered to the recipient's inbox as a legitimate and secure message. The email is clearly labelled with both a secure icon and the email sender's logo, making it simple for users to see, at a glance, as to who the email is from and whether it is safe to open. In addition, fake emails, purporting to be from certified senders, are stopped before ever reaching the end user's inbox.

Separately and also in conjunction with BT Ireland, Brandmail Solutions certifies all of its email senders and works with these partners to maintain neutral compliance controls before enrolment into their programme. Best practice email behaviour must be adhered to, and non-compliant brands will be suspended from the programme. The end result for BT Ireland web mail users is a richer and safer email experience. In addition to email security, the benefit for certified email senders is that their brand is displayed in the inbox list view along with a secure icon; thus creating a branding impression each time an email is sent and thereby increasing brand equity.

Commenting on today's announcement, Noel Ruane, Managing Director, Brandmail Solutions, said, "The reputation of the service is only as good as the reputation of the email senders, thus we, at Brandmail Solutions, have a vested interest to ensure best practice email sending behaviour. Email end users now have an independent mechanism in place to ensure that they are not spammed and can unsubscribe from email programmes under the scrutiny of a third-party. Email is the number one online activity. It is an invaluable part of our everyday lives, but unfortunately there are drawbacks and we believe that Brandmail Solutions can optimise the benefits and eliminate the bad and ugly."

BT Ireland expects to roll out its free BT Secure Mail service in early 2007, complete with a list of participating email senders. On roll out, customers who wish to receive branded and secure emails from email senders they trust and want to correspond with should visit www.btireland.ie for more information.

For further information please contact:
Priscilla O'Regan, Head of PR, BT
Tel: 01 432 5162
Email: priscilla.oregan@bt.com

For further information about Brandmail Solutions please contact:
Ben Valdimarsson, Bracken Public Relations
Tel: 01 677 3277
Email: ben@brackenpr.com

About BT Ireland:
BT operates across Ireland, north and south. With over 3,000 employees, the company is headquartered in Dublin and Belfast, with offices in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services.

For more information, visit www.btireland.ie

About Brandmail Solutions:
Brandmail Solutions was founded in 2004 and has offices in Silicon Valley California, The Digital Hub Dublin and Cologne. Brandmail Solutions offers a complete, scalable, secure and robust end-to-end e-mail branding and security solution that enables organisations' brands in the end-users inbox and also secures the e-mail communication channel, guaranteeing delivery and providing extensive reporting to brand managers. Built upon industry standards, Brandmail Solutions has created a verified mail system to restore confidence in email communications, and does this by establishing relationships with ISPs and Mailbox Providers to ensure that email, supposedly sent by its customers, is only delivered if it is genuine. Spoofed email messages are discarded before the recipient ever sees them. Genuine emails are allowed to bypass the content-based filters which are commonly used by ISPs. These emails are identified as secure by replacing the sender's email address with a graphical representation of their corporate logo along with a secure icon. Visit Brandmail at www.brandmailsolutions.com.