LUMBERTON, May 30, 2002 — Carolina Online is proud to announce free virus and Spam protection for all customers to protect against the recent outbreak of junk e-mail and computer viruses.

Throughout the past several months, countless destructive viruses have propagated across the Internet resulting in millions of dollars in damage or lost productivity. Customers are usually unaware of infection until after the fact.

"The purpose of providing this value added service is to stress our commitment to protecting our customers, as well as maintaining a high quality of service." said Carolina Online President and CEO, Gary Carr. "Today, we have implemented the first line of defense against viruses and unwanted junk e-mail."

The result of this scanning: If a virus is found in an e-mail message attachment, the attachment will be cleaned of the virus, then forwarded on to the customer with a indication that a virus was found and the cleaned message is attached. If unwanted junk e-mail is delivered to our servers from the Internet, the message is quarantined and compared against previous Spam. If the message matches previously determined Spam, the message is quarantined and double-checked. If the message is again confirmed as Spam it is then deleted from the server.

"Spam and virus protection is a viable product that many Internet service providers successfully market and sell as an additional service. Carolina Online recognizes that viruses and Spam have reached epidemic proportions throughout the world. It has so severely affected customers', businesses and their livelihoods that we felt we had to extend the protection to our customers free of charge. We are loyal to our customers for choosing Carolina Online and for making us the leading Internet service provider in the Carolinas'." said Gary Carr

"Although this value added service will greatly enhance the quality of service Carolina Online provides, we are aware that there are those customers that will not want to have this first line of defense. In the coming weeks we will offer the ability to deactivate this feature on a per mailbox basis."

"Carolina Online has currently blocked 186,456 viruses and junk e-mail messages from reaching customers since May 1, 2002 and although Carolina Online has made a considerable investment to protect customer’s e-mail boxes from viruses and Spam we are not catching 100% of all junk mail or viruses. Customers are encouraged to install and maintain their own anti-virus solution as well as protect your e-mail addresses from e-mail harvesters by not giving your e-mail address to web sites or posting to newsgroups."

For information about Carolina Online's award-wining Internet access, Web hosting and e-commerce services, please call 888-839-4595 or visit www.carolina.net.