DIGITAL DIVIDE
Bridging Europe's Gap in Net Access (NYT)
INTERNET
GOP Drafts 'E-Contract' With America In Pitch for Tech Community's
Support (WSJ)
House Leaders to Vote on Internet Tax Ban(NYT)
New Internet Anti-Fraud Center Announced by Attorney General (NYT)
Napster Loses Round in Efforts By Music Industry to Shutter It (WSJ)
MERGERS
FCC Set to Clear Bell Atlantic Deal (WP)
Deal Pushes NTT Communications Into U.S. Net Market (NYT)
JOURNALISM
News, We Overlook Pictures (USA)
WIRELESS
WAP Standard Runs Into Trouble With Incompatible Technologies (WSJ)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
TRYING TO GAUGE, AND BRIDGE, EUROPE'S GAP IN NET ACCESS
Issue: Digital Divide
According to Sam Paltridge, an analyst at the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, the gap between Internet access
charges in Europe and cheaper access charges in the U.S. is continuing to
grow. "The cost level is actually less important than the structure of
pricing to explain the differences among countries in adoption of the
Internet and e-commerce," he explained. The common European practices of
high telephone taxes and metered telephone charges -- charging per minute
for local calls rather than a flat rate - are getting in the way of making
the total cost of Internet access lower. The introduction of unmetered AOL
access in France, for example, increased average Internet use from around 8
hours per month to 27 hours per month. Paltridge has also analyzed the
growth of e-commerce in Europe and America by measuring the proliferation of
secure "SSL" servers, which are commonly used for financial transactions. In
the last several months, he said, the U.S. has added 10 times more SSL
servers to the Internet than the other member states of the OECD.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bruno Giussani]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/cyber/eurobytes/09eurobytes.html)
INTERNET
GOP DRAFTS 'E-CONTRACT' WITH AMERICA IN PITCH FOR TECH COMMUNITY'S SUPPORT
Issue: Internet Regulation
Republicans are expected to unveil their "E-Contract 2000" today, in a
ceremony to be broadcast over the Internet, just hours before Congress is
set to vote on a bill that would extend the tax moratorium on Internet
commerce. The E-Contract calls for such things as increasing "digital
opportunities" by providing access to technology for poor people, new laws
governing "cybersecurity" and new benefits for telecommuters. "Republicans
need to stand up for freedom on the Internet," says House Majority Leader
Richard Armey [R-Texas]. Republicans have put forward a 5-year extension to
the Internet tax moratorium. While the moratorium extension is popular with
Internet-savvy voters and tech-conscious GOP politicians, opponents fear
that it will give an unfair advantage to Internet businesses at the expense
of traditional retailers, and that as more sales migrate online, state
governments will suffer as sales-tax revenue, which is a big part of their
budgets, dries up. Democrats are set to recommend an alternative plan
featuring a two-year extension of the moratorium, saying it would be a
perfect compromise, allowing Internet commerce to flourish, but guarding
against unanticipated damage to states and retailers.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: Jim Vandehei]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB957820971101271985.htm)
HOUSE LEADERS TO VOTE ON INTERNET TAX BAN
Issue: Internet Regulation
Republican House leaders are pushing for passage of legislation that would
extend for five more years a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet
purchases. Opponents of the legislation say the extension is not necessary,
because the original ban does not expire for 17 more months. They also
object to the fact that the bill would remove an exemption that lets a
handful of states collect taxes on Internet access, taxes that were in place
before the original ban went into effect. In general, state and local
governments are concerned that a continued Internet tax ban would take away
an important sources of state revenue. The bill's supporters say that it
will encourage the development of commerce on the Internet. "This is just
the first step.... This comprehensive approach to e-commerce will expand
digital opportunities for every American," said Representative Dick Armey,
the House majority leader, in announcing the vote last week.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Jeri Clausing]
(ttp://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/cyber/capital/09capital.html)
NEW INTERNET ANTI-FRAUD CENTER ANNOUNCED BY ATTORNEY GENERAL
Issue: Security
As a result of increasing fraud perpetrated on the Internet, the Justice
Department announced today the creation of a center to deal with just those
crimes. The new Internet Fraud Complaint Center - intended to help both
consumers and legal authorities at all levels "a one-stop shopping approach
to identifying Internet fraud schemes and referring them to the proper law
enforcement agency," said Attorney General Janet Reno. Ms. Reno said crime
statistics showed the need for an Internet crime-complaint unit. Last year,
she said, Americans filed almost 18,000 complaints with the Federal Trade
Commission about Internet fraud. "They ranged from complaints about online
auctions to sales of computer hardware and software," she said.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Stout]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/09frau.html)
NAPSTER LOSES ROUND IN EFFORTS BY MUSIC INDUSTRY TO SHUTTER IT
Issue: Intellectual Property
Marilyn Hall Patel, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Northern
California, denied Napster's claim that it was a "mere conduit" of
information, and found that Napstar hadn't taken adequate steps to keep
"repeat offenders" from using the site. Napster is an Internet service where
people can share MP3 music files on their own computers as well as download
songs, most of which are pirated versions of copyrighted music. Napster's
"mere conduit" claim was an attempt to exempt themselves from being held
responsible for any copyrighted material they might transmit. And even
though Napster cancels the account of a user found to be passing pirated
material, the judge noted that it doesn't collect the IP numbers of people
it kicks off the site, though doing so would make it easier to keep them off
the system permanently. The judge's ruling leaves Napstar with two remaining
legal arguments to counter the lawsuit brought against it by the Record
Industry Association of America. The first argument is that Napstar
functions as an Internet search engine, a category of site protected by
federal law. The second argument is a claim that, while pirated music is
sometimes transmitted on the site, Napstar also has many completely legal
uses as well. Judge Patel hasn't yet said when or how she will hear these
other arguments.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: Lee Gomes and Martin
Peers]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB957829189796006031.htm)
See Also:
JUDGE RULES ON 2 ISSUES IN MUSIC CASE
[SOURCE: New York Times (C6), AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/09music.html)
MERGERS
FCC SET TO CLEAR BELL ATLANTIC DEAL
Issue: Mergers
Bell Atlantic has finally won approval from the Federal Communications
Commission to acquire GTE Corp., creating the largest local telephone
company in the nation. After two years, the deal has finally won the
blessing of the Federal Communications Commission, which is expected to
formally approve it by the middle of next month. The FCC's blessing will
hand control of more than 64 million telephone lines in 31 states and the
District--or roughly a third of all lines in the nation--to the new company,
Verizon Communications Inc. "It will be one of the largest, most influential
companies in the world," said Scott Cleland, an analyst with Legg Mason
Precursor Group in Washington. Sources say at least three of the five-member
commission, including Chairman William E. Kennard, have shown inclination to
force a cleaner divestiture. But pressure from Capitol Hill has mounted. In
addition to the merger review bills, several pieces of legislation would
ease the FCC restrictions on Bell companies, immediately allowing them into
the lucrative long-distance business for computer data.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: Peter S. Goodman]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29072-2000May8.html)
DEAL PUSHES NTT COMMUNICATIONS INTO U.S. NET MARKET
Issue: Mergers
The move is part of an aggressive new global expansion strategy by NTT
Communications, a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, the company
ad agreed to acquire Verio Inc., a Web site manager based in Englewood,
Colo., for $5.5 billion in cash. Analysts say that NTT Communications
acquisition of Verio, which will be one of the biggest Japanese purchases of
an American company, would help the Japanese company gain an important
beachhead in the highly competitive, fast-expanding Internet market in the
United States.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C4), AUTHOR: Calvin Sims]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/09network.html)
JOURNALISM
TO GET THE NEWS, WE OVERLOOK PICTURES
Issue: Internet/Journalism
A joint study by Stanford University and the Poynter Institute on the way
people read news online found that readers look at text before they look at
photos or graphics. This is contrary to how people read newspapers --
looking at pictures and graphics before looking at text. According to the
study, people read 92% of the text on Web pages, but they looked at only 22%
of the graphics on the same pages. "We were very puzzled," said Marion
Lewenstein, Stanford professor emerita of communication and the project's
main investigator "my own personal opinion about graphics is they don't give
you a lot of information, and people are after information." The study also
found that readers prefer general news over specialized news. In fact, 25%
of the news they read was national, 22% was local, 16% was specialized, 10%
was based on hometown news, and only 2% was customized.
[SOURCE: USAToday (3D), AUTHOR: Janet Kornblum]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000509/2241859s.htm)
WIRELESS
WAP STANDARD RUNS INTO TROUBLE WITH INCOMPATIBLE TECHNOLOGIES
Issue: Wireless
Analysts say it could be two years before all the technical problems with
the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) are solved, responding to a report
issued today by AnywhereYouGo.com, a London-based services company for
wireless Internet developers. The report found that one quarter of wireless
Internet sites have "serious errors", stemming from two major causes:
1)mutations in the Wireless Application Protocol and 2)many wireless
Internet sites aren't compatible with particular cellular phone handsets.
The errors are significant enough to prevent users from viewing pages or
completing transactions. Until the problems can be resolved, consumers
looking to exploit the wireless Internet are going to have to accept that
they will be unable to access some WAP services or that they'll have to
regularly buy new handsets.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: David Pringle]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB957807830719193619.htm)
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