INTERNET
Lobbying and Confusion Over Internet Taxes Escalate (Cyber)
Discovery Plans to Launch Internet Unit To Pursue Web Tie-Ins to
Programming (WSJ)
Internet: The American Experience (FCC)
PRIVACY
Medical Web Sites Faulted on Privacy (WP)
Epic Testifies On National Plan For Information Systems Protection
(EPIC)
MERGER/ALLIANCES
Two Fiber Optics Firms Teaming Up (SJM)
Bell Atlantic/GTE Supplemental Filing (FCC)
Motorola, Psion Ally to Develop Mobile Products for Web Access (WSJ)
TELEPHONY
Consumer And Business Groups Join To Push Federal Government To Cut
Telephone Prices (CU)
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Businesses Warm Up To Making Deals Over Net (USA)
Services Let Consumers E-Mail Cash (USA)
INTERNET
LOBBYING AND CONFUSION OVER INTERNET TAXES ESCALATE
Issue: Internet
The Congressional session has just begun, and already several bills have
been filed to make a current three-year moratorium on new, discriminatory
Internet taxes permanent. The Internet Tax Fairness Coalition, a political
action committee trying to abolish sales taxes on Internet transactions, has
given $1.7 million to members of Congress in 1999, according to a report
issued last week by the Center for Responsive Politics. Sen. John McCain,
the largest recipient of the coalition's contributions, is the author of a
bill that would permanently extend the moratorium on Internet taxes and ban
the future collection of online sales taxes. Another group, the E-Fairness
Coalition, which has given about $1 million to members of Congress, is
backing a simplified system that would enable state and local governments to
collect taxes on online sales. Additionally, the National Association of
Counties (NACO) says its top legislative priority this year is to block any
attempts to ban Internet sales taxes. "People were convinced early in the
game that collecting tax on Internet purchases was a new tax, but that's not
a new tax," said Shawn Bullard, a spokesman for NACO. "Very few lawmakers
have recognized that (McCain's bill) takes that extra step. That is a dagger
in the heart of local and state governments."
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Jeri Clausing]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/cyber/capital/01capital.html)
DISCOVERY PLANS TO LAUNCH INTERNET UNIT TO PURSUE WEB TIE-INS TO PROGRAMMING
Issue: Internet
Cable-television giant Discovery Communications is expected to announce
today its plans for setting up a new Internet subsidiary, Discovery.com,
with an eye on ultimately taking it public. Discovery is expected to invest
$500 million in the unit over the next three years. The new company will be
able to create alliances and invest in other companies to provide web
tie-ins for existing Discovery products. Last year, Discovery became an
investor in Petstore.com, a Web site devoted to pet supplies, then used it
as a bridge to snag Animal Planet viewers, and vice versa. Discovery.com is
also hoping to attract consumers to its fledgling Internet "gateway," dubbed
Web Express.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B10), AUTHOR: Leslie Cauley]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB94936336165774772.htm)
INTERNET: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE (Speech)
Issue: Internet
Chairman Kennard's Address to the Conference on "Internet &
Telecommunications: The Stakes" in Paris, France.
[SOURCE: FCC]
(http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/2000/spwek004.html)
See Also:
FCC CHAIRMAN ADDRESSES SPANISH INTERNET CONFERENCE
(http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Miscellaneous/News_Releases/2000/nrmc0006.html)
PRIVACY
MEDICAL WEB SITES FAULTED ON PRIVACY
Issue: Privacy
A study by Georgetown University's Health Privacy Project has found that the
21 leading health web sites are not following through on their privacy
policies. "Almost across the board, the privacy practices did not match the
policies," said Janlori Goldman, a researcher for the report. The report
found that through "cookies" (bits of code placed on a user's computer that
helps a site identify the user on return visits) and banner advertisements,
information is collected about users without them being aware of it. A
number of the web sites reviewed gathered personally identifying data about
visitors and then passed that data along to third parties, "in direct
violation of stated privacy policies." Eight of the 21 sites have a business
relationship with the Internet advertising company Doubleclick. "None of
the sites that use ad networks disclosed whether they are doing profiling,"
the report said, "Nor did they explain what is happening with the data being
collected by the ad networks." The report will be officially released today
at the e-Health Ethics Summit in Washington DC, a gathering of major online
health information providers.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: John Schwartz]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/feed/a57644-2000feb1.htm)
EPIC TESTIFIES ON NATIONAL PLAN FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROTECTION
Issue: Privacy
On February 1, EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg presented his
testimony (http://www.epic.org/security/EPIC_testimony_0200.pdf), before the
Senate Judiciary Committee (http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/), on the
privacy implications of the Clinton Administration's "cyber-terrorism"
initiative. EPIC warns that the plan, in its attempts to protect the United
States' information infrastructure, could violate the civil liberties of the
citizens it is trying to protect.
[SOURCE: Electronic Privacy Information Center]
(http://www.epic.org/security/press_release.html)
TELEPHONY
CONSUMER AND BUSINESS GROUPS JOIN TO PUSH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO CUT
TELEPHONE PRICES
Issue: Telephony
From Press Release: Consumer groups-including Consumers Union, AARP,
Consumer Federation of America, the National Association of State Utility
Consumer Advocates, and the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel - are
joining forces with large and small business users - the National Retail
Federation and the International Communications Association-to propose a
$4-billion-a-year cut in line items charged on telephone users' monthly
bills (i.e., "subscriber line charges" and "federal access charges"). The
coalition's proposal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would
reduce monthly fees and long distance prices for all consumers, regardless
of how long they spend making telephone calls. The coalition's plan would
save telephone customers $4 billion a year by: 1) Cutting the subscriber
line charges on consumers' and business' phone bills by $1 a month, saving
consumers and businesses $2 billion a year; 2) Eliminating the "primary
interexchange carrier" charge (a federal access charge), saving consumers
and businesses $1.8 billion a year; and 3) Cutting "special access" charges,
paid by many business users, saving them $200 million a year. The coalition
is asking the FCC to incorporate its plan into an industry proposal to
reform the telephone access fee system submitted by an organization called
the Coalition for Affordable Local & Long Distance Service (CALLS), an
industry group including AT&T, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, GTE, SBC, and
Sprint.
[SOURCE: Consumers Union]
(http://www.consumersunion.org/telecom/cutteledc100.htm)
ALLIANCES/MERGERS
TWO FIBER OPTICS FIRMS TEAMING UP
Issue: Alliance/Fiber Optic
Brocade Communications Systems, a San Jose company specializing in
networking and data storage, and the Santa Clara-based start-up Optical
Networks are expected to announce today a strategic alliance that could
decrease the cost of sending information over fiber optic lines and help
speed up the Internet. Optical Networks makes equipment to manage the flow
of voice and data traffic within metropolitan areas, routing it off of the
cross-country fiber highway and onto high-speed local roads. Businesses use
Brocade's storage area networks to protect and share information between
locations within a radius of about 100 kilometers. By cooperating with
Optical Networks, Brocade will enable its customers to double the reach of
their storage networks by using high-speed local roads. "We're seeing
incredible pent-up demand for interconnection these days in a
metropolitan-area space," said Greg Reyes, CEO of Brocade. Fiber optic lines
transmit data by moving light over fiber instead of moving electrons over
copper telephone wires. "Electrons over copper" is proving too slow and
feeble to handle the increasing rush of data traffic as the Internet goes
mainstream.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Jon Fortt]
(http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/optic020100.htm)
BELL ATLANTIC/GTE SUPPLEMENTAL FILING
Issue: Mergers
Commission seeks Comment on Supplemental Filing Submitted by Bell Atlantic
Corporation and GTE Corporation to transfer GTE Internet backbone and
related data business to a separately owned and controlled corporation.
[SOURCE: FCC]
(http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Public_Notices/2000/da000165.doc)
MOTOROLA, PSION ALLY TO DEVELOP MOBILE PRODUCTS FOR WEB ACCESS
Issue: Alliance/Wireless
Psion and Motorola have just announced an agreement to jointly develop a
range of mobile Internet-access devices to be used on cellular networks in
Europe, North America and Asia. This expands on Psion's existing
relationship with Motorola under the Symbian alliance, a joint venture
formed to back Psion's EPOC operating system for handheld computers and
other wireless devices. The companies anticipate a launch of a new product
aimed at professionals who want to use the Internet while on the move,
during the first half of 2001.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Wall Street Journal
Staff]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB949333562109146317.htm)
E-COMMERCE
BUSINESSES WARM UP TO MAKING DEALS OVER NET
Issue: E-Commerce
The speed at which business is conducted is now so hurried that companies
are beginning to make more and more deals without face to face meetings.
HomePage.com, a Pasadena, Calif. provider of homepage services conducts many
of its negotiations electronically. "We really don't exchange paper at all,
until the signature sheet is faxed." BCC Technologies, a supplier of
computer storage products, has made multimillion-dollar deals with European
equipment manufacturers using only videoconferencing. As the trend of
"faceless" deals grows beyond the high-tech industry, companies are being
created to help automate deals. Acquire1 of Redwood City, Calif., has
developed an online system that allows merchants to review and hire
companies that process credit card transactions. "It's becoming the new way
of doing business," says Acquire1 CEO John Gillen. "It's more efficient and
cheaper."
[SOURCE: USAToday (1B), AUTHOR: Stephanie Armour]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000201/1896467s.htm)
SERVICES LET CONSUMERS E-MAIL CASH
Issue: E-Commerce
Consumers now have the ability to send and receive cash over the Internet at
no cost. After signing up for PayPal.com or dotBank.com, both of which are
payment services rather than banks, individuals can send money by charging
it to a credit or debit card. Recipients are notified by email and can
request a check or an electronic transfer to their bank account. X.com, an
Internet-only bank also offers payment services, but in order to use them
consumers must first open a no-fee checking account. After opening the
account, recipients can send their money on to another bank. Experts expect
the services to catch on. None of them require special software, but they
must first convince potential users that their services are secure. PayPal
and X.com are both offering incentives to those who sign up. PayPal offers
$10 to new users and X.com offers $20. PayPal says it already has nearly
99,000 users-the others won't divulge user numbers. Joel Friedman, of
Andersen Consulting, says it will be hard to produce enough volume.
"Establishing a new payment system is not a trivial exercise," he said.
[SOURCE: USAToday (3B), AUTHOR: Christine Dugas]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000201/1896444s.htm)
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