WHAT TO WATCH FOR IN 2000
This Year's Big Bets (NYT)
Digital Commerce: The Risks of an Unregulated Internet (NYT)
Predicting the Legal Internet Issues for 2000 (Cyber)
INTERNET
Sometimes the Patient Knows Best (NYT)
A Capitalist Venturing in the World of Computers and Religion (NYT)
Online profiling is on the increase (SJM)
CABLE
Battle Over Retransmission Blocks Fox TV Stations From Cox Cable
(WSJ)
FCC
Internet Pioneer to Be Named Top FCC Technologist (NYT)
WHAT TO WATCH FOR IN 2000
THIS YEAR'S BIG BETS
Issue: InfoTech/Media
Executives in the media and technology industries are feeling lucky. They
are making big bets this year, risking fortunes to find success in something
we have not seen yet. AT&T's $100 billion investment in cable television
systems may be the biggest bet ever in American business. Fatbrain.com and
iUniverse.com want to help authors publish their own work. Globalstar
Telecommunications has invested $3.3 billion in a new satellite telephone
system -- two other companies have already gone bankrupt trying to do the
same. ABC is betting we wouldn't be able to get enough of "Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?" What's the final answer? See the URL below for more.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/010300media-bets.html)
DIGITAL COMMERCE: THE RISKS OF AN UNREGULATED INTERNET
Issue: E-Commerce
Can the Internet -- held together with baling wire and chewing gum (at
least, legally, structurally, economically) -- withstand the comong heavy
weather of a truely global, unregulated economy? This may be the biggest bet
of all. Internet stocks, of course, are flying, but may be kept aloft only
by their own hot air. The more popular the Web site, the more the company is
worth. Manuel Castells, author of _The Information Age: Economy, Society and
Culture_ presents a chilling argument: As a result of the globalization of
largely unregulated and increasingly fluid financial markets, he says, "we
may have created an automaton." By that, he means "an electronic-based
system of financial transactions which overwhelms controls and regulations
by governments, international institutions and private financial firms, as
well as individual investors, consumer and citizens." And, although the
adoption of info tech helped gut the labor movement in the US, its unlikely
other countries will be thrilled about the potential of productivity
technology that first takes away jobs and then dismantles governmnet
supports. Castells predicts a "backlash of social struggles, and political
reactions, that will simply block reform and innovation." Governmnets or
significant segmnets could opt out of global capitalism "not necessarily to
build an alternative system, but just to recover some degree of control over
their lives and values," Castells suggests.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C4), AUTHOR: Denice Caruso]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/03digi.html)
PREDICTING THE LEGAL INTERNET ISSUES FOR 2000
Issue: Internet
Cyber Law Journal asked a group of legal mavens to predict the two or three
most significant developments in Internet law and policy for 2000. Some of
their predictions follow. Jack M. Balkin, Professor and Director, Internet
Society Project, Yale Law School, said that the increasing market
concentration of media industries will continue to be a major concern. "What
is at stake," said Balkin "is the practical opportunity to get a diverse set
of views heard over the din of the most powerful voices and the roar of
electronic commerce." Jessica Litman, Professor at Wayne State University
Law School, expects "the various challenges to ICANN's legitimacy to come to
a head." Litman predicts that the structures created within the next year
will shape domain name space for the foreseeable future. Eben Moglen,
Professor at Columbia University School of Law, thinks that the U.S. v.
Microsoft case will bear some of the most important developments of the new
year. Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information
Center, expects that public reaction to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
and the Anti-Cybersquatting Act will cause Congress to reconsider both
measures. Jonathan Zittrain, Lecturer on Law and Executive Director, Berkman
Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, predicts interesting
developments in the Federal Election Commission's attempt to regulate
campaigning online.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Carl S. Kaplan]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/12/cyber/cyberlaw/31law.html)
INTERNET
SOMETIMES THE PATIENT KNOWS BEST
Issue: Health Info Online
[Op-Ed] President Clinton is calling for new laws to require online
pharmacies to get licenses from the Food and Drup Administration and fines
for selling prescription drugs without a valid prescription. Postrel views
this as another political authority threatened by the diversity and freedom
of the Internet. "The Internet partially restores patients' rights to choose
how they buy their medications and from whom," Postrel writes. "No wonder
the drug censors are so upset."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A23), AUTHOR: Virginia Postrel, the editor of
Reason magazine and author of "The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing
Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress."]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/oped/03post.html)
A CAPITALIST VENTURING IN THE WORLD OF COMPUTERS AND RELIGION
Issue: Internet People
The idea that in the next 100 years "traditional religion will be as
relevant as witch doctors are today" is one held by one of Silicon Valley's
premier venture capitalists, Vinod Khosla, a partner in Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers. Mr. Khosla started his first company at age 25 and two
years later, he co-founded Sun Microsystems. Khosla wanted to build a
workstation that would handle the complex operations that a mainframe
computer could, but that was inexpensive and easy to assemble. In February
1982, Sun Microsystems was born with Khosla as chief executive. Four years
ago, he saw that telecommunications companies would soon need equipment to
push data over fiber optic networks faster and more cheaply and no such
technology existed at the time. Today, Khosla is inspired most by the future
of technology. One day, human thoughts will be downloaded into computers,
Khosla predicts. "Experience is a collection of memories and rules that get
imbedded in the brain," he observes. "So when is a human not a computer?"
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Laura Holson]
(http://www12.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/03khos.html)
ONLINE PROFILING IS ON THE INCREASE
Issue: Privacy
A handful of online advertising companies are scrambling to build profiles
of Internet users. As the Web becomes increasingly commercialized, companies
see value in gathering information on how long people stay at a site to what
they're putting into their online shopping carts. Soon firms will deliver
targeted ads to consumers who are most likely to respond. "The whole idea is
very Orwellian, just the sense that Big Brother is watching over you," said
Forrester Research analyst Christopher Kelley. "The problem is they're
starting to be able to match up your online 'clickstream' data with more
traditional demographic data," which "becomes very scary for consumers. Now
there is no anonymity on the Web.'' Rep. Edward Markey, (D-MA) is concerned
that the government is refusing to deal with this issue, despite public
concern. "Unless elected officials respond, there will be no limit on the
ability of a company to gather information that would tell that company more
about you than any member of your family knows about you."
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Deborah Kong]
(http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/profil010300.htm)
See Also:
TRANSCRIPT OF THE ONLINE PROFILING WORKSHOP NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
The transcript of the Online Profiling Workshop (November 8, 1999) is now
available on NTIA's Privacy Issues web page.
[SOURCE:NTIA]
(http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/privacy/index.html)
CABLE
BATTLE OVER RETRANSMISSION BLOCKS FOX TV STATIONS FROM COX CABLE
Issue: Cable
News Corp's Fox Television unit and cable operator Cox Communications Inc.
are locked in a battle that is preventing Cox's cable-TV subscribers from
seeing programming on Fox-owned TV stations. On Saturday Cox dropped
carriage of Fox channels in several large markets, including suburban
Washington, Dallas and Cleveland. Fox had demanded that Cox systems agree to
carry two Fox cable channels on all of its systems as Cox coverts to digital
technology with more channel capacity. Cox says it isn't willing to commit
to carrying the two cable channels on all its systems where Fox stations are
located. As a result, around 500,000 subscribers have lost Fox programming.
It is unlikely that Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, or the
Justice Department will get involved. One federal official called the
dispute "a contractual matter, not a policy issue."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A12), AUTHOR: Joe Flint]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB946854879714968384.htm)
FCC
INTERNET PIONEER TO BE NAMED TOP FCC TECHNOLOGIST
Issue: FCC
The Federal Communications Commission plans to announce today that it has
appointed David J. Farber, a University of Pennsylvania professor and a
pioneering computer scientist, as chief technologist for the agency. Prof.
Farber served last year as a Justice Department expert witness in the
Microsoft antitrust trial. Farber argued against one of Microsoft's main
contentions: that the way the company had chosen to integrate its browser
software into its Windows operating system was the only possible technical
alternative. A pioneer of the Internet, Farber helped develop the first
electronic telephone switches while at Bell Laboratories in the 1960's.
During the 1970's, he conducted ground-breaking work in networked computing
systems at the University of California at Irvine. Farber said that he would
get involved in a variety of technology issues at the FCC, including
high-speed and wireless networks, the convergence of communications and
computing technologies, the infusion of Internet technology into the
nation's communications system, and the
impact of the Internet on media the agency now regulates. "There is a
struggle for radio spectrum," he said, "and that is one of the issues we
will have to grapple with."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C6), AUTHOR: John Markoff]
(http://www12.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/03farb.html)
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