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Dialog Now Offering "Dialog Choice" Pricing Option

Plan Features Unlimited Enterprise-Wide Access to Selected Content at a Fixed Annual Price

CARY, N.C., USA (February 3, 2004) — Dialog, a Thomson (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, said today that it is now offering a new fixed-fee enterprise pricing plan called Dialog Choice.

The new pricing option is now available to corporations, government agencies, law firms and other enterprises that need to make critical, in-depth information resources available directly on the desktops of professionals throughout their organizations.

Dialog Choice features flat-fee annual subscriptions for unlimited access to selected, "must-have" information databases of high-value content provided by leading information providers, with customized pricing based on the databases selected and by the number of individuals to be granted unlimited access to those resources.

"Many of our customers around the world are implementing enterprise-wide information solutions to give their professionals immediate, direct access to the premium information content they need," said Roy M. Martin, Jr., Dialog CEO and president. "Through our recent product and service innovations, and now through the flexibility of Dialog Choice, we are helping to make those enterprise solutions as successful as they can be."

Added Martin: "The advantage of the Dialog Choice concept is that it allows enterprises to know in advance exactly how much it will cost annually to make critical information resources continually available to their people who need them most."

Dialog is one of the world's leading aggregators of information. It offers access to more than 14 terabytes of content, a vast and continuously updated electronic warehouse of news, business intelligence, current and archived journal articles, patents and research across an array of industries and topics.

Subscribing enterprises may now opt for a Dialog Choice fixed annual fee to offer one or more of the available databases to a specified number of professionals within their organizations. A pharmaceutical company, for example, might make databases of clinical and toxicological data available to its research and compliance departments worldwide, while a law firm might select a global collection of databases containing fulltext patents for its intellectual property department.

Online searching of information databases not covered by a Dialog Choice subscription will continue to be billed according to whatever pricing schedule a customer has with Dialog. For example, a company for which in-depth competitive intelligence is researched by one office may decide to continue paying on a transactional basis for access to those information resources while providing Dialog Choice enterprise-wide access to scientific, technical and medical research required by the larger audience. Or they may decide to pay for the most commonly used databases on a fixed-fee basis while continuing to pay on a transactional basis for databases used less frequently across the enterprise.

Dialog Choice Continues Support of Enterprise-Wide Solutions

Dialog Choice is the latest in a series of innovations undertaken by Dialog to support the implementation of enterprise-wise information solutions.

Last year, Dialog unveiled Dialog Portals, a next-generation information service designed to work with portals software to enable mission-critical business news, research and competitive intelligence to be integrated into enterprise portals.

The company also last year launched its Dialog Application Programming Interface (API), a Web Service that enables Dialog's content collection and search engine to be integrated transparently into Web sites, enterprise portals, corporate intranets and extranets, software applications and other interactive services.

Leading Information Providers Supporting Dialog Choice

To date, more than 40 leading information providers have agreed to make their content available for Dialog Choice pricing plans. More are expected to sign up in the weeks and months ahead.

The current Dialog Choice roster includes many of the most frequently used databases offered by Dialog, including ones focused on various aspects of chemical research, economics, and medicine and health, among other topics.

In the intellectual property arena, a number of databases containing business-critical information on patents are available for Dialog Choice pricing, including European Patents Fulltext, JAPIO - Patent Abstracts of Japan, INPADOC/Family and Legal Status, U.S. Patents Fulltext and WIPO/PCT Patents Fulltext.

Information providers now offering their content through Dialog Choice subscriptions include the American Economic Association, CAB International, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Dechema, Economist Intelligence Unit, Elsevier Engineering Information, Elsevier Science, Fraunhofer Informationszentrum Raum und Bau, IFIS, National Library of Medicine, National Technical Information, IPA and RAPRA Technology, among others.

Gale Group, also a Thomson business and another leading aggregator of information from around the world, also is supporting the new Dialog Choice pricing option for Dialog users. All of the Gale databases accessible through Dialog now are available through Dialog Choice.

Available Gale Group databases include such well-known ones as Gale Group Aerospace/Defense Markets & Technology®, Gale Group Company Intelligence®, Gale Group Computer Database™, Gale Group Health & Wellness Database^SM, Gale Group Legal Resource Index™, Gale Group Marketing & Advertising Reference Service®, Gale Group New Product Announcements/Plus®, Gale Group PROMT® and Gale Group Trade & Industry Database®, among others.

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About Dialog and The Thomson Corporation
Dialog, a pioneer in developing the technology behind electronic information retrieval, is the world leader in providing online-based information services to organizations seeking competitive advantages in such fields as business, science, engineering, finance and law.

Today, the online services provided by Dialog — offered through the Dialog®, Dialog Profound®, Dialog DataStar™, NewsEdge and Intelligence Data brands — give users the ability to precisely retrieve data from more than 1.4 billion unique records, accessible via the Internet or through delivery to enterprise intranets. Searchable content includes articles and reports from thousands of real-time news feeds, newspapers, broadcast transcripts and trade publications, plus research reports and analyst notes providing support for financial decision-making, as well as in-depth repositories of scientific and technical data, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property data. Information professionals and end-users at business, professional and government organizations in more than 100 countries prize Dialog services for their depth and breadth of content, precision searching and speed.

Based in Cary, N.C., USA, Dialog has operations in 31 other countries. Dialog (www.dialog.com) is a business of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC). With 2002 revenues from continuing operations of US$7.5 billion, Thomson (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers.

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All designated trademarks used herein are the property of The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries. Registered marks are registered by The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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