C I Host to Reward Clean Professional Athlete

DALLAS, -- Dec. 3, 2004 -- C I Host, a global leader in Web hosting and software development, today announced it will pay $10,000 to the first major league, professional athlete who will tattoo the C I Host logo on their bicep -- if they first test steroid free.

The Texas-based, Web hosting leader recently delighted and appalled onlookers when it offered $10,000 for "basketbrawl" participants to step forward and get a C I Host tattoo commemorating their roles in the 15 minutes of shame.

"Most people saw the humor and the creativity," said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host. "But critics said we shouldn't poke fun at basketball's black eye. So we came back with a dope-free plan to associate ourselves with the most politically correct jocks ... er ... I mean athletes."

C I Host, the largest privately held hosting company, was the first company to advertise on the trunks of a Heavyweight prize fighter, embroidering its logo on the waistband of Evander Holyfield in 1999. Next, on eBay, C I Host found an entrepreneur auctioning off advertising space on his head. The Texas-based company was the highest bidder, inking a deal for $7,000 for five years of exposure. The Human Billboard now has a 5-by-5 orange and blue C I Host tattoo on the back of his shaved head. The Human Billboard directly has led to 800 new accounts for C I Host.

Faulkner's company also is the official sponsor of The Wi-Fi Guy, http://www.wifi-guy.com , a blog in which a journalist traveled 18,000 miles, covering 43 cities, to explore and review wireless Internet access points, or hotspots. To date, The Wi-Fi Guy has received an estimated $1.2 million dollars of media coverage. Perhaps, more conservative than the other stunts, the site has become a respected, albeit somewhat colorful media for the wireless industry.

About C I Host

C I Host (http://www.cihost.com ), based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a global Web hosting and Internet solutions provider serving 210,000 individual consumers and businesses in 190 countries worldwide. C I Host's headquarters and Network Operations Center are in Bedford, Texas, and the company operates additional diverse data centers in Los Angeles and Chicago.