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Chrome Data Corporation Builds Momentum in Automotive e-Commerce

20 June 2000

More than 1,000 Web Sites Adopt Chrome's Web Carbook, Automotive e-Commerce's Most Accurate Pricing and Specification Tool

    CHICAGO - Chrome Data Corporation, the automotive industry's most accurate independent business-to-business provider of data and software for selling cars online, today announced that its Internet-based auto specification and pricing tool, Web Carbook(TM), is now available from more than one thousand URL's across the World Wide Web. This is helping fuel Chrome's corporate mission of touching every automotive transaction to ensure data accuracy and pricing integrity.

    Since January Chrome has signed contracts with many companies and organizations leading auto e-commerce, including (in alphabetical order) Autodaq, AutoTrader.com, Car Loan First, CarMiser, CarSoup.com, Classified Ventures (cars.com), The Cobalt Group, Credit Union Direct Lending, Deja.com, DigitalCars.com, DriveOff.com, eGMC.com, Member Services, Inc., NADAGuides.com, OnlineResponse.com, TheNetLab!, USAutoNews.com and World Dealer.

    Chrome's clients currently include more than 5,600 automotive dealer franchises, including 30% of the largest 100 mega-dealers and 30% of the largest 500 dealers; 1,200 credit unions, including five of the ten largest; 500 corporate and fleet accounts, including almost 20% of the Fortune 500; 30 online services and portals, including more than half of the 20 most-visited car-buying Web sites; and 15 of the 17 largest fleet leasing companies.

    Last year automotive dealers that are Chrome clients accounted for at least one in every five cars sold.

    Chrome's Web Carbook(TM) provides consumers with the most accurate and reliable vehicle data available on the Internet -- including year, make, model, style, standard and optional equipment and invoice and MSRP pricing. A recent study by CNW Marketing/Research concluded Chrome's vehicle pricing and specification configuration system was the most accurate of all major online data providers -- 99.64% accurate.

    About Chrome Data

    Chrome Data pioneered the technology behind electronic vehicle configuration and for the past 14 years has collected, analyzed and enhanced "raw" automotive data from all manufacturers. Chrome's flagship product, the desktop research, pricing and ordering tool PC Carbook(R), is widely accepted as the standard in automotive data. Chrome's Internet-based product, Web Carbook(TM), allows dealers, Internet portals, financial institutions, and insurance and warranty companies to provide visitors to their Web sites with a tool to configure cars online -- including specifications on all new vehicle makes and models, standard and optional equipment, vehicle pictures and accurate pricing. This information precisely matches manufacturers' invoice and MSRP pricing, enabling users to configure and order any vehicle sold in the U.S. with the confidence that the delivered product and price are exactly what was expected.