Latest News

Comodo First to Issue EV SSL Certificate to a Non-Corporate Business Entity

With new guidelines approved by the CA/B Forum, Comodo has begun to deliver EV SSL certificates to all verifiable businesses including sole proprietorships

Jersey City, NJ (June 12, 2007) - Comodo, a global Certification Authority and leading provider of Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, is pleased to announce that, in accordance with the newly-ratified EV SSL Guidelines established by the CA/Browser Forum, it has begun offering EV SSL certificates to all businesses, both corporate and non-corporate entities. This first set of guidelines, two years in the making, was championed by Comodo in its commitment to make sure that all businesses, regardless of status or financial resources, have access to first-rate security and authentication solutions. Comodo was prepared for the passing of these new guidelines and immediately issued the first such EV SSL Certificate to a non-corporate business entity.

The first business to receive an EV SSL Certificate is GetBids.com. This innovative business allows customers to procure home contractor services within their local area based on their telephone area code. Created by Scott Wolmouth, this site offers contractors guaranteed marketing and advertising through a sophisticated set of services including telemarketing, a business profile, and a routing source to drive qualified leads to the contractor using innovative database routing and a live transfer.

Prior to today, GetBids.com, like other sole proprietorships doing business under an assumed name, could not obtain an EV SSL certificate because there were no established processes for validating this class of business owner. For businesses like GetBids.com, this created a significant business disadvantage.

"Establishing trust on my site is critical because visitors need to have confidence in my site otherwise they will not procure services through me," said Mr. Wolmouth. "Having Comodo's EV SSL Certificate on my website will definitely improve sign-up rates because I look as credible as any other larger site and the EV SSL certificate demonstrates my trustworthiness to my customers."

As the initiator of the CA/Browser Forum, Comodo championed the need for EV SSL certificates for business of all sizes because, in many ways, smaller businesses have a higher need to establish trust using EV SSL certificates than their larger competitors. Unlike big businesses that have deep resources to "buy" consumers' trust through branding campaigns, EV SSL certificates levels the playing field for smaller sites irrespective of financial resources or legal status because online visitors can equally trust all EV protected sites due to the stringent validation processes.

"GetBids.com is the first of many sole proprietor small businesses who will be able to prominently display their status as a highly authenticated online business," said Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and Chief Security Architect of Comodo. "Comodo is proud that it has enabled business owners like Scott Wolmouth to create a new level of trust and drive more revenue. Comodo's validation infrastructure is ready to authenticate many, many more small businesses like GetBids.com so that they too can create more trust online."

For more information on Comodo's EV SSL Certificates or its suite of security and identity assurance solutions, visit www.instantssl.com.

About Comodo

Comodo, through its group of Internet security companies, is a leading Certification Authority and global provider of Identity and Trust Assurance services on the Internet. Comodo secures and authenticates online transactions and communications for over 2,000,000 businesses and consumers.

With a global presence Comodo offers businesses and consumers third-generation solutions for intelligent security and authentication technologies that create trust online. Comodo's technological expertise includes PKI digital certification, Code signing certification, integrated authentication infrastructure services, Web Content authentication, Secure messaging solutions, PCI compliancy scanning, SSL digital certificates including our flagship InstantSSL brand, HackerGuardian, Banking solutions including Two Factor Authentication, and digital e-commerce services.

For additional information on Comodo - Creating Trust Online™ visit http://www.comodo.com

For more information, media representatives should contact
Judy Shapiro
Comodo
(201) 963-9471
Email: judy.shapiro@comodo.com