Enforced Standards Versus Evolution by General Acceptance: A Comparative Study of E-Commerce Privacy Disclosure and Practice in The U.S. and The U.K. “compares U.S. and U.K. e-commerce Web sites’ notice and disclosure practices, their adherence to promises about secondary uses of e-mail addresses, and the state of the market for privacy assurance programs in the… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Commerce
Can the Battle Against Spam Be Won?
From the Sacramento Bee: “By some estimates, 200 to 300 spammers, sometimes loosely organized into gangs, are responsible for almost 90 percent of spam — unsolicited “junk” e-mail. They play a high-tech cat-and-mouse game and increasingly use overseas servers to inundate AOL, Microsoft Network, EarthLink and other Internet service providers.” Continue Reading
ADA and E-Commerce
New position paper from the National Council on Disability – When the Amerians with Disabilities Act Goes Online: Application of the ADA to the Internet and the Worldwide Web. “This paper analyzes and answers the critical question: Does the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) apply to commercial and other private sector Web sites, and if… Continue Reading
New Fee-Based Magazine Portal Launches 7/28
KeepMedia Inc., which launches July 28, is a new service from Louis Borders, founder of Borders Books. News about this story was first reported on June 30 by paidContent.org, in the WSJ on July 21, and and today by News.com. This venture will allow subscribers to download content from an archive of more than 140… Continue Reading
Amazon Plans Huge Online Searchable Archives of Nonfiction Texts
Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books. “Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several publishing executives involved.” Continue Reading
Will Public Pressure Result in Do Not Spam Registry?
The FTC’s Do Not Call Registry has garnered considerable press and more than 25 million registrants. A recent survey from Insight Express indicates that consumers are eager for a similar program to address spam: “83 percent of consumers said that the government should roll out a similar ‘do not spam’ list that they can use… Continue Reading
House Extends Moratorium on Net Taxes
Today the House Judiciary Committee passed the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2003 (H.R. 49), setting the stage for the a vote by the full House and Senate to permanently extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes. See also, Internet Tax Ban Hits Congressional Fast Track Continue Reading
Yahoo Announces Purchase of Overture
Yahoo will pay $1.63 billion for Overture. Yahoo! Reports Second Quarter 2003 Financial Results (PDF), Company Posts Second Quarter Operating Income of $63 Million, Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization of $97 Million With One Sweep, Yahoo Regains Search Engine Dominance Why Google Should Be Worried Continue Reading
Senator Urges FTC to Action on Website Privacy
In a July 1 press release, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) asked the “Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue a consumer advisory alert warning Internet users to carefully read the privacy policies of websites asking for personal information and to develop guidelines to ensure that these privacy policies fully disclose how that data will be used.”… Continue Reading
Profits Prevail as Web Privacy Declines
From a July 1, 2003 Washington Post article: “…marketers and an array of service providers expanding their collection and use of consumers e-mail addresses and other personal information, despite broad assurances to protect individual privacy and honor consumers choices about how much marketing they want to receive.” Continue Reading
Anti-Spam Crusade Unites Generally Divided Groups
Congress Finds Rare Unity in Spam, to a Point. Promises abound that this will be the year when Congress enacts anti-spam legislation, as bi-partisan support, consumer demand and corporate frustration have reached a crescendo. See my related postings on current legislation here and here, and this June 20 article, Senate Once Again Backs Stringent Penalties… Continue Reading
New Legislation on Criminalizing P2P File Transfer of Copyrighted Works
H.R. 2517 (introduced June 19 by Rep. Lamar Smith), the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, to enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, educate the public about the application of copyright law to the Internet, and clarify the authority to seize unauthorized copyrighted works. In the bill language is the following statement: Trafficking… Continue Reading
