INTERNET
Rock Musicians Warn Legislators of Internet Piracy Peril (NYT)
FBI's Internet Wiretaps Raise Privacy Concerns (WP)
Entrepreneur for Women's Sites Turns to Men to Increase Traffic
(WSJ)
MERGERS
Deutsche Telekom May Play Jealousy Card in Search of a Deal (NYT)
Global Crossing Nears Agreement To Sell Its Local Phone Business
(WSJ)
WorldCom CEO Assails Regulators On Merger (WP)
EMPLOYMENT
Technology Is Heightening Job Worries, Greenspan Says (NYT)
TELECOMMUNICATION REGULATION
PUC To Vote Wednesday On Rule Governing Format Of Phone Bills (CU)
EU Prepares to Present Legislation To Replace Local Telecom Rules
(WSJ)
Cell Phone Bill Passes in House (NYT)
MEDIA AND SOCIETY
Hollywood Is Asked to Join A Campaign Against Drugs (NYT)
Parents Should Know Cost of Free Computers, Legislators Say (NYT)
BROADBAND
Six REITs Are Joining Forces To Form Broadband Company (WSJ)
ADVERTISING
Advertising: Direct Marketers Try to Change the Approach of Internet
Retailers (NYT)
INTERNET
ROCK MUSICIANS WARN LEGISLATORS OF INTERNET PIRACY PERIL
Issue: Intellectual Property
Rock and roll musicians joined online music executives and members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the effects on the recording industry
of downloading music from the Internet, yesterday. The Recording Industry
Association of America, which represents major record labels, and several
music groups, have argued that software created by the online music startup
Napster permits individuals to steal copyrighted material. Lars Ulrich, the
drummer for the band Metallica, said that "if music is free for downloading,
the music industry is not viable." Napster, he said, had "hijacked" his
music. Some in Congress, however, have been reluctant to impose regulation
on Internet music sites. "History has shown that when new technologies
emerge, they may initially seem to threaten to trump intellectual property
protection," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the ranking member of the
committee. "In the end, things get sorted out."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C2)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/biztech/articles/12digital.html)
FBI'S INTERNET WIRETAPS RAISE PRIVACY CONCERNS
Issue: Internet
A new automated Internet wiretapping tool developed by the FBI has caused
concerns among civil libertarians and privacy advocates about how it might
be used. The Internet wiretap examines all packets coming through a computer
network but gives live law enforcement officers only those packets related
to the subject of the investigation. Civil liberties groups said the new
system raises troubling issues about what constitutes a reasonable search
and seizure of electronic data. They worry that the new technology also
could be used to scan private information about legal activities, in
addition to sniffing out potential criminal conduct. "It goes to the heart
of how the Fourth Amendment and the federal wiretap statute are going to be
applied in the Internet age," said Marc Rotenberg, head of the
Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. But FBI officials
claim that new technology is no more invasive than any other surveillance
devise. Marcus Thomas, chief of the FBI's cyber-technology section at
Quantic, VA, said: "This is an effort on the FBI's part to keep pace with
changes in technology.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A1), AUTHOR: John Schwartz]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23986-2000Jul11.html)
ENTREPRENEUR FOR WOMEN'S SITES TURNS TO MEN TO INCREASE TRAFFIC
Issue: Internet
SheSay (www.shesay.com) is one of a dozen or so Taiwan-based Web sites aimed
at women that has experienced difficulty differentiating itself enough to
attract new users. To overcome this challenge, SheSay has introduced a new
game on its site called "Raise a man for fun" that attempts to reverse the
traditional roles of men and women in Chinese society and empower women to
find the perfect man that suits their needs. This strategy has been
successful. Two weeks after introducing the game, more than 6,000 men
registered to be found and kept. Now, about 13,000 "couples" are on the site
and thirty percent of its registered users are men, compared with less than
10% previously. "I think a big challenge faced by women's sites is that they
aren't competing only with other women's sites," says Mr. Wu of SheSay.
"They are really competing with general portals." Unless a site has
something unique to offer the field is too competitive and costly for a
start-up to thrive.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (), AUTHOR: Connie Ling]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB963317405161377839.htm)
MERGERS
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM MAY PLAY JEALOUSY CARD IN SEARCH OF A DEAL
Issue: Mergers
Deutsche Telekom appears to be eyeing acquisitions of VoiceStream Wireless
and Qwest. But some think that DT's attention to those companies may just be
a ploy to make its true love, Sprint, jealous. VoiceStram and Qwest would
give DT, Germany's largest telephone operator, both a wireless and
fixed-line network that would span most of the US. DT may be able to
purchase the two companies for less than it would cost to buy Sprint.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Sorkin & Andrews]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/071200deutsche-acquire.html)
GLOBAL CROSSING NEARS AGREEMENT TO SELL ITS LOCAL PHONE BUSINESS
Issue: Mergers
Citizens Communications hopes to pay about $3.6 billion in cash to acquire
Global Crossing's local phone business. It also plans to sell its
Web-hosting business, which is facing increased competition, to rival Exodus
Communications. The two transactions, if completed, would be a significant
reformation of Global Crossing. While the local phone business has
contributed cash flow to Global Crossing, a lot of it is very rural. "It's
not data intensive, and it's not where Global wants to be," said Daniel
Reingold, telecommunications analyst with Credit Suisse First of Boston. On
the other hand, local-phone assets would merge nicely with Citizens'
business model, which is to become a major provider of local-phone service
in primarily rural areas by buying up rural local phone assets across the
country.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A4), AUTHOR: Nikhil Deogun, Anita Raghavan And
Deborah Solomon]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB963358238566692833.htm)
WORLDCOM CEO ASSAILS REGULATORS ON MERGER
Issue: Mergers
At a trade show in New Orleans yesterday, WorldCom chief executive Bernard
J. Ebbers accused federal authorities who blocked his company's $129 billion
takeover of Sprint of suffocating new competition in the nation's local
telephone market. Last month, both the Justice Department and the European
Commission in Brussels moved to block the deal. In his comments reported
yesterday, Ebbers noted that Justice and the FCC have allowed many Bell
mergers. "All of the transactions where the monopolies expand their
territory have been approved," he said. "All the significant transactions
where competitors to monopolies wanted to expand their geographic footprints
have been shot down."
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: Peter S. Goodman]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26026-2000Jul12.html)
EMPLOYMENT
TECHNOLOGY IS HEIGHTENING JOB WORRIES, GREENSPAN SAYS
Issue: Jobs
The Internet is transforming the job market, but not in ways that are
beneficial to workers. Rapid technological change is making jobs less secure
in the United States, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the
National Governors' Association conference, suggesting those anxieties would
keep a cap on wage demands and inflation even as unemployment holds close to
a 30-year low. This "heightened level of potential job dismissal [is a] less
welcome byproduct" of the expansion of real-time information. The comments
by Mr. Greenspan suggest worker demands for higher wages are being moderated
by the fear of being laid off amid "job skill obsolescence." That would mean
there is less inflationary pressure that the central bank would choose to
address by raising interest rates even as the unemployment rate, at 4
percent, is close to its 30-year low of 3.9 percent reached in April.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C2), AUTHOR: Bloomberg News]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/fed-rates.html)
TELECOMMUNICATION REGULATION
PUC TO VOTE WEDNESDAY ON RULE GOVERNING FORMAT OF PHONE BILLS
Issue: Telephone Regulation
From Press Release: At its meeting on Wednesday, the Texas Public Utility
Commission will vote on adoption of a long-awaited rule aimed at making
telephone bills more understandable for the state's consumers. But the
problem is the proposed rule would do just the opposite, Consumers Union
said today. "After months of meetings and written comments, PUC staff has
proposed a rule which we believe falls short of the goal of making phone
bills more understandable," said Janee Briesemeister, senior policy analyst
with CU's Southwest Regional Office. "Contrary to its stated goal, the rule
would raise confusion and reduce consumers' ability to verify charges by
allowing companies to hide the amount of fees and surcharges on phone
bills." Briesemeister said the proposal would also widen the "digital
divide"
between consumer have and have-nots by, in essence, allowing companies to
offer local phone service only to those who have access to the Internet.
Under the rule, telephone companies would be required to show on each bill
the total price charged for basic local phone service, including all fees
and surcharges (such as 911 fees, universal service fund, subscriber line
charge). These fees and surcharges would then be itemized, either as detail
under the total or on a separate part of the bill, identified through a
legible footnote or asterisk. However, the company could decide for itself
whether or not to itemize the amount of the charge for each fee or
surcharge.
[SOURCE: Consumers Union]
(http://www.consumersunion.org/telecom/pucsw700.htm)
EU PREPARES TO PRESENT LEGISLATION TO REPLACE LOCAL TELECOM RULES
Issue: International
The European Commission Wednesday will present a package of draft laws and
regulations designed to streamline some 26 European Union telecommunications
laws into just six. Although the changes are expected to bring lower prices
for consumers by injecting greater competition, and relax regulation of many
mobile phone companies, an instant fix to Europe's patchwork of national
regulations is nowhere in sight. Some members of the European Parliament
worry there won't be much improvement in coordinating EU telecommunications
laws at the national level. Skeptics are concerned about the commission's
intention to let national authorities determine which companies command
"significant market power" in their markets. Wim Van Velzen, EU's
Parliament's point man on the communications package would like to see
national telecommunications regulators folded into national competition
authorities for greater coherency. Five years from now, at the latest, EU
"member states should prove why national regulatory authorities are still
necessary," he said. There are also worries that European Commission is
putting continued liberalization ahead of "harmonization" of EU laws. "The
local-loop unbundling regulation would mean one set of rules that would
apply throughout the EU," said Per Haugaard, a commission spokesman.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A23), AUTHOR: Brandon Mitchener]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB963343532468584827.htm)
CELL PHONE BILL PASSES IN HOUSE
Issue: Wireless/Regulation
House of Representatives has passed a measure to clear up the confusing web
of taxes imposed on cellular phone calls. A similar bill is currently in the
Senate. The legislation would modify the existing system so that wireless
users would be taxed only in their place of primary use -- essentially the
area in which they have subscribed for the service. Currently, consumers are
taxed in a variety of ways by states and localities. The result is a
complicated formula for calculating monthly bills, since mobile users
typically make calls from a number of different localities.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C7), AUTHOR: AP]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/cell-phone-bill.html)
MEDIA AND SOCIETY
HOLLYWOOD IS ASKED TO JOIN A CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUGS
Issue: Media & Society
The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy is increasing its
campaign to encourage major movie studios, as well as individual directors
and writers, to promote antidrug messages in films. "We believe there will
be opportunities to leverage popular movies and videos that responsibly
communicate campaign messages, after they have been released," Gen. Barry R.
McCaffrey, the office's director, said in testimony prepared for a
Congressional hearing yesterday. "As powerful as television is, some experts
believe that movies have an even stronger impact on young people." "There is
no money at all, zero, given to any program for including antidrug
messages," General McCaffrey told reporters. "These decisions are made by
the creative community on their own."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A18), AUTHOR: Eric Schmitt]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/071200antidrug-message.html)
PARENTS SHOULD KNOW COST OF FREE COMPUTERS, LEGISLATORS SAY
Issue: EdTech
"If parents do not want their children to be objects of market research
firms while in school, they should have the right to say 'no,'" said Rep.
George Miller (D-CA). He, along with Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and
Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), want to see some regulation concerning
schools accepting free computer equipment and Internet services from
companies. The problem, they say, is that in exchange the schools allow the
companies to gather valuable marketing data from students. The legislators
want to give parents a role in determining whether schools can let Internet
firms gather information from their children for commercial benefit. The
legislation would require schools to get parental permission before a
company can collect personal information from students and use it for
commercial purposes. Schools that do not comply could lose their eligibility
for federal funding. "It will basically inhibit the innovative ways schools
have reached out to businesses," said Daniel Fuller, federal programs
director for the National School Boards Association. "We're looking at
significant costs at the local level," he added, saying the loss of business
support and the cost of denying Internet access to students would be
impossible to quantify.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Rebecca Weiner (rweiner( at )nytimes.com)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/cyber/education/12education.html)
BROADBAND
SIX REITS ARE JOINING FORCES TO FORM BROADBAND COMPANY
Issue: Broadband
A half-dozen residential real-estate investment trusts have joined forces to
form their own broadband company that will offer Internet services to the
group's 500,000 apartment units. Once the broadband company is off the
ground, REITs hope to wire the apartment buildings to offer high-speed
Internet access and digital cable-television service to tenants at a lower
cost than tenants would pay if they went elsewhere for the services. In the
past, many real-estate companies have been content to offer a broadband
company access to their buildings in exchange for a revenue share or small
ownership stake in the company. The value of the new broadband company could
be a significant bonus for the REITs, said Credit Suisse First Boston
analyst Lee Schalop. He said the deal will recognize the value the REITs
bring to the venture through their 500,000 apartment units. Wall Street
tends to value telecom companies based on the number of units they service.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Janet Morrissey]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB963341107754946524.htm)
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING: DIRECT MARKETERS TRY TO CHANGE THE APPROACH OF INTERNET
RETAILERS
Issue: Advertising/Ecommerce
People in the direct response industry think that Internet retailing is
simply another kind of direct marketing -- like catalog and club businesses.
But online sellers have not agreed. They spent lavishly on general
advertising, like print and broadcast ads, when other, cheaper and more
effective direct response advertising was available. They were trying to
brand themselves, but branding may not be enough to generate sales: "All it
does is implant an idea in the consumer's head." To get actual customers,
said said Jim Nail, an analyst with Forrester Research who specializes in
online marketing and advertising, "you have to target your advertising to
high-quality prospects, measure the value of your customers and constantly
use your data to fine-tune your strategy." In short, "you need direct
marketing."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C6), AUTHOR: Bernard Stamler]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/columns/071200adcol-ecommerce.html
)
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