DIGITAL DIVIDE
Bill Gates Turns Skeptical On Digital Solution's Scope (NYT)
GM, DaimlerChrysler Workers Get AOL Deal (WP)
Valley Leaders Focus On Narrowing Digital Divide (SJM)
LIBRARIES
As Publishers Perish, Libraries Feel the Pain (NYT)
Copyright Office Issues Unusual Rule (CyberTimes)
ACCESS TO GOV INFO
Washington's Official Secrets Act (NYT)
POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Local Stations Are Winning Big In This Year's
Presidential Race (WSJ)
The Ad Campaign: Commercial Attacking Bush Is Most Hostile
of Campaign (NYT)
New Media Pique Women's Political Interest (WP)
MERGERS
Merger Puts AOL's Methods on Trial (WP)
Viacom Considers Paying An Unusually High Price For BET (USA)
ECOMMERCE
Survey Says Online Fraud Is Increasing As More Merchants
Take Steps to Fight It (WSJ)
ONLINE HEALTH
Web Health Groups Try to Set Standards (WSJ)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
BILL GATES TURNS SKEPTICAL ON DIGITAL SOLUTION'S SCOPE
Issue: Digital Divide
Microsoft's Bill Gates is taking his own industry to task for having too
much faith in digital solutions to the planet's worst ills. The premise at
a recent conference, "Creating Digital Dividends," was that "market
drivers" could be used "to bring the benefits of connectivity and
participation in the e-economy to all of the world's six billion people."
Gates would have none of it: "I mean, do people have a clear view of what
it means to live on $1 a day? There's no electricity in that house. None."
When a moderator brought up solar power, Mr. Gates shot back, "No! You
can't afford a solar power system for less than $1 a day." And, "You're
just buying food, you're trying to stay alive....The mothers are going to
walk right up to that computer and say, My children are dying, what can you
do? They're not going to sit there and like, browse eBay or something. What
they want is for their children to live. They don't want their children's
growth to be stunted. Do you really have to put in computers to figure that
out?" Read more about what the world's richest Luddite is thinking at the
URL below.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A1/A18), AUTHOR: Sam Howe Verhovek]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/technology/03GATE.html)
(requires registration)
GM, DAIMLERCHRYSLER WORKERS GET AOL DEAL
Issue: Jobs/Digital Divide
General Motors and DaimlerChrysler yesterday signed an agreement with
America Online to provide cut-rate Internet services to all of their
U.S. employees. The deal was also signed by the United Auto
Workers union. GM and DaimlerChrysler are following the lead of Ford in
sponsoring the use of communications technology for employees. The UAW was
involved in the Ford deal as well. Ford announced plans to subsidize the
cost of personal computers and Internet services for about 200,000 employees
in the United States. The GM-DaimlerChrysler agreement does not provide
computers, but it does offer reduced costs for other equipment, such as
single-set boxes to be used in conjunction with AOL's AOLTV interactive
television service and GM's DirecTV satellite-dish service. The deal will
reach 217,000 GM employees and 100,000 DaimlerChrysler workers. The
employees will be eligible for $3/month AOL access. Optional services
include AOLTV, plus a Philips receiver, at $5 a month, or a combination of
AOLTV and DirecTV, plus a single-set box, at $31.95 a month.
[Source: Washington Post (E05), Author: Terence Chea]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4331-2000Nov2.html)
See Also:
TECHIES PREFERRED PERK: FREE PCs
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E03), AUTHOR: Carrie Johnson]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2800-2000Nov2.html)
VALLEY LEADERS FOCUS ON NARROWING DIGITAL DIVIDE
Issue: Digital Divide
Seeking to narrow the technology gap between the haves and have-nots, a
group of Silicon Valley leaders Thursday launched a collaborative effort to
seek ways to improve student achievement and enhance teacher training. The
forum, "Mission Critical: Closing the Achievement Gap," was the first of a
three-part initiative by Joint Venture to enlist the public and private
sectors to help expand computer access for Latino and African-American
youth. Forum organizers hope that by providing better educational
opportunities today, local students will later join a "homegrown" high-tech
workforce. Keynote speaker Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University
professor, urged education leaders to consider improving student learning by
boosting teacher salaries, offering more training opportunities and
providing better equity to assist pupils on the lower end of the
socioeconomic scale. The United States, she said, "spends 10 times more
money on the education of the top 10 percent -- the wealthiest 10 percent
-- than it does on the education of the bottom 10 percent."
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Edwin Garcia]
(http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/front/docs/divide110300.htm)
LIBRARIES
AS PUBLISHERS PERISH, LIBRARIES FEEL THE PAIN
Issue: Libraries
The average price of scholarly journals has more than tripled in the last
14 years. These escalating costs are causing librarians to cancel
subscriptions and buy fewer new books. In turn, this has diminished the
market for books of all kinds, frustrating professors desperate to publish.
The higher prices are blamed on consolidation of the publishing industry.
Until the 1960's, scores of smaller companies and nonprofit organizations
published the vast majority of journals. Since then, a handful of companies
led by Reed Elsevier have acquired the bulk of them and have aggressively
raised subscription prices. Now Reed Elsevier is trying to purchase the
textbook business and roughly 500 journals owned by the publisher Harcourt
General. Librarians warn that the deal will only result in higher prices of
journals. [Much more at the URL below]
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: David Kirkpatrick]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/business/03PUBL.html)
(requires registration)
COPYRIGHT OFFICE ISSUES UNUSUAL RULE
Issue: Intellectual Property
The Copyright Office has ruled that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of
1998 permits people in certain circumstances to break through the
technological barriers that safeguard lists of blocked Web sites maintained
by many types of filtering software, allowing critics to hack their way
past encryption schemes to get their hands on the so-called blacklist of
banned sites. The ruling appears to be the federal government's first
blessing of hacking -- and will further the public debate about the use and
value of blocking software. "We are pleased by the decision," said Chris
Hansen, a lawyer specializing in Internet issues with the American Civil
Liberties Union. "We've always believed that one of the principal flaws [of
filtering software] is the secrecy of the list of banned sites." Congress
is poised to pass laws requiring the use of filtering programs in public
schools and libraries.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Carl S. Kaplan (kaplanc( at )nytimes.com)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/technology/03CYBERLAW.html)
(requires registration)
See Also:
HACKER DEFACES PRO-ISRAEL WEB SITE AS THE MIDEAST CONFLICT EXPANDS
INTO CYBERSPACE
[SOURCE: New York Times (A17), AUTHOR: John Schwartz]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/technology/03HACK.html)
(requires registration)
HACKER VIOLATES SITE OF PRO-ISRAEL GROUP, EXPOSING PERSONAL DATA OF ITS
MEMBERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A6), AUTHOR: Ted Bridis]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973213446824129688.htm)
(Requires subscription)
ACCESS TO GOV INFO
WASHINGTON'S OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT
Issue: Access to Gov Info/Journalism
[Editorial] "If President Clinton signs a bill that would make it a felony
for government officials to disclose any kind of classified information,
the American people should no longer expect to hear much about Washington's
foreign policy failures and intelligence lapses, or even to learn the
details of arms control treaties." So begins this editorial against
provisions of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2001. The impulse that
led to the legislation -- protecting the secrecy of sensitive intelligence
gathering systems -- is understandable, the Times concedes, but the
resulting bill goes beyond any reasonable effort to protect secrets. "The
case against the bill rests on the core principles of a democratic society.
Press freedom is part of a constitutional system that insures that the
government cannot stifle debate." [See more about the White House's
decision at the second URL below]
[SOURCE: New York Times (A30), AUTHOR: NYT Editorial Staff]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/opinion/03FRI3.html)
(requires registration)
See Also:
WHITE HOUSE DEBATES BILL MEANT TO STOP LEAKS
[SOURCE: New York Times (A27), AUTHOR: Marc Lacey]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/politics/03SECR.html)
(requires registration)
POLITICAL DISCOURSE
LOCAL STATIONS ARE WINNING BIG IN THIS YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Issue: Political Discourse
As the presidential race nears the finishing line, a winner has already
emerged: local TV stations. Local broadcasters are reaping the bounty from
the most expensive election cycle in history. Armed with unrestricted "soft
money," political parties and special-interest groups have joined
presidential candidates and others in an $850 million TV-ad battle to woo
narrowly targeted groups of voters. Industry executives say ad rates in the
battleground states and in hotly contested markets like Philadelphia and New
York are as much as three times the normal fees. "There's very little
available" for advertisers who want to run spots on NBC before Election Day,
says Mr. Frank Comerford, executive vice president of sales for NBC
Television Stations, the local stations owned and operated by General
Electric Co.'s NBC unit. The story is the same at CBS. "Our stations are
filled to the gills," says Greg Schaefer, vice president of sales at CBS
Paramount Television Stations, a unit of Viacom. The slot crunch and what's
seen as decreasing election coverage by broadcasters has alarmed federal
regulators. "The cost of campaign advertising on television continues to
spiral upward," says Federal Communications Commission Chairman William
Kennard. He has called for a government mandate requiring broadcasters to
provide candidates with free air time. Local broadcasters have always
received most of the political ad revenue because of the number of
candidates running for congressional and local posts. But this year, record
soft-money spending by the Republican and Democratic parties, plus spending
by special-interest groups like the Sierra Club and Citizens for Better
Medicare, has greatly boosted the stations' take. It used to be that the
majority of money was spent on news and prime time," says Kirk Black,
general manager of WNEM, a CBS affiliate that serves the Flint-Saginaw
market. "Now they're spending money everywhere, from Martha Stewart to
Divorce Court to the afternoon soaps to college football."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Kathy Chen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973212918361750332.htm)
(requires subscription)
THE AD CAMPAIGN: COMMERCIAL ATTACKING BUSH IS MOST HOSTILE OF CAMPAIGN
Issue: Political Discourse
In the latest of this season's attack ads created by and targeted at the
major party candidates, the Gore campaign released a new TV spot yesterday
that questions whether Gov Bush has what it takes to be president. After
questioning Bush's record in Texas, the ad asks, "Is he ready to lead
America?" Marks scores the ad: No close watcher of campaign advertising
will be particularly surprised that things are heating up as the tight
contest enters its final weekend. Only two days ago, the Bush campaign
issued its toughest spot, a swipe at Mr. Gore's reputation for embellishing
his experiences and achievements. The Gore campaign's response, in essence,
is that Mr. Bush is short on achievement. The most original visual element
is the inclusion of the expensive home and car, images that tie in with Mr.
Gore's recent accusation that Mr. Bush's tax cut was "class warfare on
behalf of billionaires." But while the Bush spot was playfully nasty, the
new Gore spot is intense and harsh, and seems intent on unnerving voters.
[Read about Gore's endgame strategy at the second URL below.]
[SOURCE: New York Times (A22), AUTHOR: Peter Marks]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/politics/03ADBO.html)
(requires registration)
IN STRATEGY SHIFT, GORE ADS QUESTION BUSH'S CAPABILITY
[SOURCE: New York Times (A1), AUTHOR: Kevin Sack]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/politics/03GORE.html)
(requires registration)
NEW MEDIA PIQUE WOMEN'S POLITICAL INTEREST
Issue: Political Discourse
Television programming of a political nature directed at women is more
prevalent than ever before. Between cable and the Internet, politicians have
been able to target female voters through special Web sites and cable
networks, such as Lifetime Television. The impact, at this point, is
anybody's guess, but women voters visiting Internet sites are getting
enormous amounts of information on where candidates -- from presidential to
local -- stand on issues. iVillage.com features a candidate match in which
visitors can list their top issues and find out which candidates agree with
their positions. iVillage also hosts "town meetings" which have had more
than 8 million virtual attendants per month hosted by the site, which is
visited more than 8 million times a month. "We've had questions from real
women, not from the pundits," says iVillage co-founder Nancy Evans. "Over
time, this has got to change the way candidates talk." Tobby Graff, a
spokeswoman for Lifetime, agreed with Evans about the questions women asked.
"They were very, very specific." American Online has also seen large amounts
of traffic on its political sites. An AOL spokesperson estimates that 51
percent of the traffic to AOL's political sites have been women.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (C11), Author: Judy Mann]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5060-2000Nov3.html)
MERGERS
MERGER PUTS AOL'S METHODS ON TRIAL
Issue: Mergers
The pending merger between America Online and Time Warner has drawn a
review of their business practices. Many opponents of the merger and
competitors think the two companies are too aggressive and already wield
too much market power. For example, Confidential company documents obtained
by The Washington Post show how Time Warner has demanded big chunks of
revenue and control from potential business partners, while AOL has imposed
contractual conditions on companies that punish them if they don't favor
AOL's Web content. "It's always alarming when you see such a large company
that thinks it can hoodwink the government and the public," said Margaret
Heffernan, chief executive of iCast Corp., an online entertainment company
that has fought unsuccessfully to strike a business deal with AOL. In a
matter of days or weeks, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal
Communications Commission will be determining when companies cross the line
from playing hardball to engaging in foul play -- and at what point a
company becomes too powerful. See what AOL's and TW's critics and
supporters have to say at the URL below.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E01), AUTHOR: Alec Klein]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2542-2000Nov2.html)
See Also
AOL ROLLS OUT INTERACTIVE TV WITH LINKS TO TIME WARNER
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Jared Sandberg]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973212556297344383.htm)
(requires subscription)
VIACOM CONSIDERS PAYING AN UNUSUALLY HIGH PRICE FOR BET
Issue: Mergers
Viacom is closing in on a $3 billion deal to buy privately held BET, which
targets African-Americans. While BET reaches 61 million cable and satellite
subscribers, Viacom is willing to pay an unusually high price, particularly
given BET's low ratings. It typically attracted about 185,000 viewers last
month, making it the No. 25 service. Viacom would be paying about $49/home
reached. The price also comes to about 24 times BET's expected cash flow of
$124 million for 2001. Yet Viacom would find it hard to pass up a chance to
buy an established network. The deal also could open synergy and
cross-promotion opportunities between BET and Viacom's other networks, such
as UPN. "African-Americans represent 12% of the population and buy 25% of
all movie tickets and 25% of premium cable services. Yet they're highly
underserved, particularly by television," says Dennis Brownlee, CEO of New
Urban Entertainment Television
[SOURCE: USAToday (9B), AUTHOR: David Lieberman]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001103/2806757s.htm)
See Also:
VIACOM AGREES TO BUY BET HOLDINGS IN A STOCK DEAL WORTH $2.5 BILLION
Late breaking news: Earlier today, Viacom agreed to acquire privately held
BET Holdings Inc. for $2.5 billion in Viacom Class B common shares and
assume $500 million in debt.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973253746529835756.htm)
(requires subscription)
ECOMMERCE
SURVEY SAYS ONLINE FRAUD IS INCREASING AS MORE MERCHANTS TAKE STEPS TO FIGHT
IT
Issue: Ecommerce
A new survey to be released Friday says that fraud is a growing problem with
doing business online, and a growing number of businesses are taking steps
to counter illegal transactions. Eighty-three percent of the merchants who
sell goods online say fraud is a problem, up from 75% who said so a year ago
according to a survey jointly conducted by CyberSource Corp, a vendor of
software for online transactions, and Mindwave Research, an online research
company. The survey also found that online purchases amount to 5% of all
credit-card transactions, but amount to 50% of all fraud involving cards.
The surveyors said that fraud rates, though growing, might soon peak. On
average, the companies surveyed estimated that they lose 4% of their overall
online revenue to credit-card fraud. That number is down from 5% a year
earlier. A majority of corporations, 61%, said they are taking more
precautions against fraud. Visa USA, for example, announced this week a
payer authentication service that will allow merchants to verify the user of
the card during the checkout process. Cardholders who aren't able to proffer
a preregistered password during the checkout process won't be able to
complete the purchase.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A2), AUTHOR: Jathon Sapsford]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB97321100754533573.htm)
(requires subscription)
ONLINE HEALTH
WEB HEALTH GROUPS TRY TO SET STANDARDS
Issue: Online Health
More than 70 million consumers are using the Internet to search for health
data, but there is little in place now to help them sort the bogus news from
important information, or to protect any personal details they may submit to
sites. The E-Health Industry is attempting to set ethics standards that will
help them evaluate the deluge of medical information on the Web. Several
organizations now want to set up a system to review health sites to make
sure they meet some basic criteria for reliability. One group, Hi-Ethics, a
coalition of 20 big commercial health sites, says it expects to announce an
agreement this month with another nonprofit organization to provide a "seal
of approval" for Web sites. The American Accreditation Health Care
Commission which deals with managed-care groups, is drafting
an accreditation program for health-care Web sites. Even the World Health
Organization has applied to a nonprofit group that authorizes Internet
domain names to create a dot-health moniker for sites that adhere to the
WHO's standards. The big question is whether these groups can ever reach a
consensus. The Internet Health Coalition has scheduled a second summit
meeting for next month, and is working with a broader industry advisory
group to draft a set of health Web site accreditation standards. Among the
criteria considered: candor, honesty, quality, informed consent regarding
the use of personal data, protection of privacy, informing patients of the
limitations of online health care and accountability. "Health on the
Internet has been like a great sprawling frontier town, and what's gathering
steam is an effort to construct a safe neighborhood with law-abiding
citizens and businesses you can trust," says Tim Nater, executive director
of the Geneva-based Health on the Net Foundation, a nonprofit medical portal
that promotes ethical standards on the Web.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Laura Landro]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973207849522388150.htm)
(requires subscription)
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...and we are outta here. Have a great weekend, leaves and all.