TELEVISION
Big Advertisers to Commission Television Scripts for Families (WSJ)
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
The $2 Billion Election (NYT)
EDTECH
School Assembly: Students Build Computers for Milpitas High Lab (SJM)
INTERNET
ISP's Customer Disclosure Practices Under Scrutiny By States (SJM)
Banks Set to Test Billing System (CyberTimes)
WWW Seen Growing But Still Elitist in Argentina (SJM)
MERGERS
SBC Asks Speedy Nevada Review; Illinois Moves Toward A Decision
(ChiTrib)
ANTITRUST
Government, Microsoft Present Contrary Views of Trial (WP)
TELEVISION
BIG ADVERTISERS TO COMMISSION TV SCRIPTS FOR FAMILIES
Issue: Advertising/Television
Procter & Gamble, General Motors, International Business Machines, Johnson &
Johnson and Sears Roebuck will unveil plans today to provide financial
support for the development of as many as eight "family-friendly" pilot
scripts for shows designated to air on Time Warner's WB network. The
companies are spending an estimated total of $1 million -- less than what
one of them might spend to air commercials during a single week of
prime-time programming. "We're not going to be involved in the content,"
says Robert Wehling, global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble. "We're
asking that in general the shows be ones that it would be reasonable to
assume a multigenerational household unit could get together and watch
without embarrassment." WB Chief Executive Jamie Kellner says the network
already has identified a couple of writers to work on scripts and is looking
at several others with young families of their own, who would be able to
bring their own life experiences to a script. P&G has a long history of
producing television shows and owns the long-running soap operas "As the
World Turns" and "Guiding Light." In partnership with Viacom, P&G also
produces the popular teenage sitcom "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and is a
financial backer of "Becker," CBS's Ted Danson comedy.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, B1, AUTHOR: Kathryn Kranhold]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB934334327134001105.htm)
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
THE $2 BILLION ELECTION
Issue: Campaign Finance Reform
[Editorial] The Times looks at the recently established "Team $1 Million," a
club of the Republican Party which costs one million dollars in campaign
contributions to enter. In return, donors get access to Republican leaders
in Congress. With fund-raising on that scale, the current political season
will almost certainly produce the first $2 billion election. The Republican
tax cut bill, sure to be vetoed by President Clinton, is being used as a
fundraising tool: the special tax breaks for the health care, real estate,
oil and gas, timber and securities industries, the sales pitch goes, can be
saved if donors contribute now. House Speaker Dennis Hastert will finally
allow a vote on campaign finance reform next month, but in a familiar move,
Members of Congress will first vote on a toothless substitute to the
Shays-Meehan bill -- if the first bill passes, the second ill not even be
voted on. The Times concludes: "The Shays-Meehan bill would clean up the
system by banning corporate and union donations to parties and applying
strict limits to donations by individuals and political action committees.
It would also extend these curbs to money raised by independent groups
running campaign ads within 60 days of an election. The conventional wisdom
in Washington is that this legislation cannot pass, even though it commands
healthy majorities in the House and Senate. In fact, the Shays-Meehan bill
can be approved by the House in September, and by the Senate in October, if
lawmakers respond to their constituents instead of party cash machines. The
August recess is a fine time for Americans to remind their senators and
Congressmen that citizen interests, not special interests, should rule in
Washington."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A22), AUTHOR: NYT Editorial Staff]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/11wed1.html)
EDTECH
SCHOOL ASSEMBLY: STUDENTS BUILD COMPUTERS FOR MILPITAS HIGH LAB
Issue: EdTech
The Milpitas Unified School District near Silicon Valley (CA) will save
about $20,000 on new computers for the upcoming school year because they had
their students assemble the computers. With the help of Amex Engineering
Production Manager George Chen, the students formed an assembly line to
build the computers. Each student had a task of putting in a unit such as a
motherboard or CD-ROM unit. The students switched tasks after five computers
were built. The students got paid $6.50 an hour for their work (much less
than it would cost for a techy). The computers, which the district purchased
through a Digital High School state grant, would normally cost $1,200 a
piece -- but having the students do the assembly saved them $100 per
computer. The students built 30 systems yesterday and will be assembling 170
computers over the next few weeks.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury, AUTHOR: Anne Martinez]
(http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/comp081199.htm)
INTERNET
ISP'S CUSTOMER DISCLOSURE PRACTICES UNDER SCRUTINY BY STATES
Issue: Privacy
A multistate task force of state attorneys general, formed several years
ago, has launched a preliminary investigation into the customer disclosure
practices of numerous Internet service providers, according to Jack Norris,
chief of multistate litigation in the Florida state attorney general's
office. The task force is examining whether or not ISP's are following
standards set up from the 1997 "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance"
agreement with AOL. The task force had threatened to sue AOL in 1997
because of customer complaints about deceptive practices regarding
marketing, billing and disclosure. AOL reached a settlement with the task
force by drafting the "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance", which the task
force now uses as a standard for checking other ISP practices. The
agreement states that AOL would: 1) clearly disclose terms of its free
trial offer; 2) inform users of potential charges for telephone access
numbers and premium services; 3) present understandable language in ads
targeting teens; 4) bill members only for services they are liable; 5) have
reasonable procedures for canceling memberships; and 6) provide members
with clear notice of changes to agreements with at least 30 days notice.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury, AUTHOR: Mark Harrington]
(http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/netprobe11.htm)
BANKS SET TO TEST BILLING SYSTEM
Issue: Ecommerce
First Union, Chase Manhattan and Wells Fargo & Co. are working together to
launch a new effort, called Spectrum, that would deliver bills and payment
services online to their customers. The three banks have 60 million
customers and together issued more than $300 million in mortgage and credit
card bills last year. Wells Fargo will offer the Spectrum service to its
mortgage customers and perhaps student lenders. According to a report by
Dataquest, banking online will grow to 24.2 million by 2004 from 7 million
last year. Online bill delivery service is a promising market, but has been
slow to develop because of the high cost of the electronic billing system
and because many customers are not Internet enabled. For those who have
access, few billers offer online billing. Dataquest also noted "consumer
unease about control of the online bill paying process." If mass billers
like phone companies and electric utilities offer online billing information
in the future, customers could be more at ease using the services. The
leader in bill processing for the banks, so far, is Checkfree, an online
billing firm that has agreements with MCI Worldcom and GTE. Transpoint, a
joint venture between Microsoft, First Data and Citibank, works with Bell
South and Consolidated Edison. PayMyBills.com and PayTrust work with smaller
billers. Though banks are hopeful and see this as a new market to attract
customers to their Web sites and their services, portals like Yahoo or
America Online could prove able competitors.
[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Bob Tedeschi]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/cyber/articles/11bills.html)
WWW SEEN GROWING BUT STILL ELITIST IN ARGENTINA
Issue: Internet Demographics/International
Prince & Cooke consultants found that Internet use in Argentina grew 120% in
the past year but that most of the expansion took place in the upper-tier
social layer. The company polled 316 Web surfers to find the average user is
thirtyish, male, has a college degree, loves e-mail and online chat but is
reluctant to make a credit card purchase. When purchases were made, the most
purchased items were books, compact discs and software. Similar to other
findings, Prince & Cooke found that electronic commerce is growing fast but
that most of it is in business-to-business transactions. Hindrances to
Internet growth included the cost of phone bills and provider fees, which
can amount to twice as much as in the U.S. ($54/month). Connections are also
slow. Though the favorite Web site is Yahoo!, which has a Spanish-language
portal, many complained about lack of Spanish-language and local sites.
Enrique Carrier, associate director of Prince & Cooke said the government,
schools, banks, utilities and business in general have not been active
enough in providing users with sites they can use to pay bills, sign on for
classes or fill in a form from home.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury (sv.com), AUTHOR: David Haskel]
(http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/742270l.htm )
MERGERS
SBC ASKS SPEEDY NEVADA REVIEW; ILLINOIS MOVES TOWARD A DECISION
Issue: Mergers
SBC is asking Nevada regulators to end their review of the proposed merger
with Ameritech by September 10. The deal was announced in May 1998 and
Nevada only recently decided it has jurisdiction to review the matter. SBC
officials report that the Nevada utilities commission agrees that a speedy
resolution is appropriate. In Illinois, Commerce Commission hearing
examiners have drafted a approval of the merger that would require SBC to
share half of the savings generated by the merger in the form of lower phone
bills. Consumer advocates say the order does not go far enough. "Most of the
savings won't even kick in until the third year, so this is nearly useless
to consumers," said Rob Kelter of the Citizens Utility Board. Adam Bottner,
a supervisor in the office of the Cook County state's attorney, was also
disappointed in the proposed order. "It's an empty promise that doesn't give
the ratepayers any savings," he said. "We're very disappointed the order
doesn't adopt the $472 million in reductions we urged."
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune (Sec 3, p.4), AUTHOR: Jon Van]
(http://chicagotribune.com/business/printedition/article/0,2669,SAV-99081102
90,FF.html)
ANTITRUST
GOVERNMENT, MICROSOFT PRESENT CONTRARY VIEWS OF TRIAL
Issue: Antitrust
"It really is 'Rashomon,'" said George Washington
University law professor William Kovacic, citing the 1950 film masterpiece
by director Akira Kurosawa in which four conflicting stories are told of the
same crime. "These are extraordinarily different assessments of what took
place." Microsoft said the government failed to prove any of the points
necessary to make a judgement stick under the Sherman Antitrust Act and that
its antitrust attack is "nothing less than an attack on innovation." The
government said that Microsoft's "predatory campaign" included attempts to
"cut off Netscape's air supply" and keep other competitors from gaining
ground in the software marketplace. The Justice Dept said consumers have
been harmed by Microsoft's attempts to impede more choices and greater
competition. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson will accept amended
filings from both sides on Sept. 10 and again hear each version of the
events on Sept. 21.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E3), AUTHOR: John Schwartz]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/11/117l-081199-idx.html)
See Also:
BRIEFS FOCUS ON WHETHER MICROSOFT IS MONOPOLY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, B6, AUTHOR: Keith Perine and Bryan Gruley]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB934310357612368082.htm)
U.S., MICROSOFT FACE OFF IN NEW FILINGS
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury, AUTHOR: David Lawsky]
(http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/742259l.htm)
JUSTICE DEPT. AND MICROSOFT PUT THEIR CASES IN WRITING
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/biztech/articles/11soft.html)
--------------------------------------------------------------