Electronic Commerce

by Dan Caterinicchia From...;MORE COMPUTING INTELLIGENCEnIDG.net home pagenCivic.com home pagenGet a free subscription to Civic.coms print editionnIDG.nets personal news pagenIDG.nets products pagesnReviews indepth info at IDG.netnEBusinessWorldnQuestions about computers Let IDG.nets editors help younNews RadionFusion audio primersnComputerworld Minute;IDG President Clinton calls on the federal government tofacilitate thegrowth of electronic transactions by identifying outdated legislation impeding electronic commerce, and invited state and local representatives to help find and revise such laws and regulations.

Join a thread, start a thread its your chance to sound offnHelp Computer Industry To Feds Hands Off The NetNew report from top computer CEOs calls for less regulation and more marketled initiativesBy Thomas H. MooreAllPolitics;WASHINGTON Nov. 18 A group of hightech executives has a vision about fostering Internet commerce, and theyre trying to make sure Congress and the Clinton Administration know what it looks like.;A new report from the Computer Systems Policy Project CSPP lays out what the nations largest computer companies think government can do and should not do to speed the development of global electronic commerce.

; by Niall McKay From... ;nALSOnnnMessage Board LinuxnnnSign up for the Computer Connection email servicennnFor more computing storiesnn; IDG The electronic commerce market segment is the latest convert to the open source movement, and vendors at the LinuxWorld expo launched a bevy of products tailored to meet the needs of todays Internet economy. ; At the show, Magic Software launched the Linux version of its eMerchant businesstobusiness electronic commerce solution; OpenSales previewed the beta version of its OpenMerchant software; and Red Hat showed its Apachebased ECommerce Server launched in July.

The G8 Group of the world's seven leading industrial nations and Russia made progress on an action plan to battle high-tech crime at a meeting in Tokyo last week. The G8 Government/Private Sector High Level Meeting on High-tech Crime, held in Tokyo from May 22 to 24, covered five major themes in a series of workshops: data retention, data preservation, threat assessment and prevention, protection of electronic commerce, and user authentication and training. Traffic and subscriber-related data retention under the force of law may help facilitate the tracing of criminals and terrorists on the Internet -- but each country should be careful when deciding upon legislation, said Toru Maruhashi, a U.S.-based lawyer and general manager of the legal department at Nifty, a major Japanese Internet service provider.

A bill aimed at promoting the use of electronic commerce among small and medium-sized businesses, especially U.S. manufacturers, has won the overwhelming approval of the U.S. House of Representatives.The Electronic Commerce Enhancement Act, approved Wednesday by a vote of 409 to 6, requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to set up a program to assist small and medium-sized businesses in integrating e-commerce technologies and business practices into their operations.

Finance ministers from the world's seven major industrial economies agreed Saturday to promote the use of information technology because of its potential to increase economic growth and employment. The ministers also emphasized, in a report released at the end of a one-day meeting in Fukuoka, western Japan, the importance of developing a structural policy that enables the private sector to make the most of information technology while ensuring businesses and consumers are protected by applicable laws and that transactions are fairly taxed.

by Ed Scannell ; IDG IBM keeps plugging away with its OS2 graphical operating system, announcing this week an update aimed at electronic commerce. ; The new version, scheduled to ship by midMay, supports Y2K considerations and euro currencya nod to OS2s presence in Europe. It also includes the longpromised Journaled File System, which is intended to give users more capacity and better scalability so that they can run ecommerce applications more efficiently, IBM officials say. ;In addition, the new OS2, which was codenamed Aurora, features the Network File System for compatibility with Unix clients and the Logical Volume Manager, which gives administrators more flexibility in partitioning hard disks on the fly. ;The updated OS2, like its earlier versions, can support as many as 64processors.

IDG Regulations that once stunted the distribution of strong encryption technology around the world are being rolled back at an encouraging pace, according to a new study by the Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC, a public research center in Washington, D.C. ; The worldwide growth of electronic commerce and the attendant need for privacy and Internet security have convinced governments to step out of the way of encryption development, EPIC...

INDIAN WELLS, California CNN A lot of high technology developers want more than anything to be part of the electronic commerce explosion. ;At the Demo 99 gathering in California dozens of companies showed off products and technologies they hope will make consumers want to log on to cybershops rather than drive to the local mall. Experts say even small retailers are joining the ecommerce craze, setting up shop in virtual malls to sell their products online. ;Soon, you might not just order your barbecue grill online; you will also be able to call up 3D instructions to help you put it together.

IBM broadened its electronic commerce offerings with the launch on Wednesday of its MerchantReach for E-Commerce package, designed for corporate customers to more efficiently track and tailor consumer data. Based on IBM's WebSphere Commerce Suite, MerchantReach includes over 200 standard reports and analysis tools that provide corporate users with product information and online customer service as well as real-time access to inventory, IBM said in a statement. IBM did not release pricing guidelines, saying that the package of software and services, which are available now, is priced per customer according to individual needs.

IBM broadened its electronic commerce offerings with the launch on Wednesday of its MerchantReach for E-Commerce package, designed for corporate customers to more efficiently track and tailor consumer data. Based on IBM's WebSphere Commerce Suite, MerchantReach includes over 200 standard reports and analysis tools that provide corporate users with product information and online customer service as well as real-time access to inventory, IBM said in a statement. IBM did not release pricing guidelines, saying that the package of software and services, which are available now, is priced per customer according to individual needs.

The G8 Group of the world's seven leading industrial nations and Russia made progress on an action plan to battle high-tech crime at a meeting in Tokyo last week. The G8 Government/Private Sector High Level Meeting on High-tech Crime, held in Tokyo from May 22 to 24, covered five major themes in a series of workshops: data retention, data preservation, threat assessment and prevention, protection of electronic commerce, and user authentication and training. Traffic and subscriber-related data retention under the force of law may help facilitate the tracing of criminals and terrorists on the Internet -- but each country should be careful when deciding upon legislation, said Toru Maruhashi, a U.S.-based lawyer and general manager of the legal department at Nifty, a major Japanese Internet service provider.

A bill aimed at promoting the use of electronic commerce among small and medium-sized businesses, especially U.S. manufacturers, has won the overwhelming approval of the U.S. House of Representatives.The Electronic Commerce Enhancement Act, approved Wednesday by a vote of 409 to 6, requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to set up a program to assist small and medium-sized businesses in integrating e-commerce technologies and business practices into their operations.

The European Commission on Friday published its plan to help develop electronic commerce in the financial services sector. The approach outlined in the Commission's proposal is based on the principle that the trading rules applied to cross-border sale and purchase of financial services should be those of the member state where the service provider is established, the so-called "country of origin" principle. "This should ensure a level playing field between online and more traditional modes of distance trade," the Commission said in a statement.

The United Nations and a coalition of mobile phone companies are working on separate initiatives that together will move e-commerce forward.Later this month, the United Nations will hear arguments for adopting a model law on electronic signatures that, if passed, could then be adopted by countries and states around the world by mid-2001.Also, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Siemens are working on a protocol that will let users conduct secure transactions from their mobile phones.Both announcements were made at the World E-commerce Forum here in London, a conference that brings together international government officials and large corporations to work on e-commerce efforts.

China will not let electronic commerce go tax-free, the director of the country's State Administration of Taxation (SAT) has stated, according to an article this week from the official Xinhua news agency.E-commerce is essentially no different from selling in physical stores, and should not be exempted from taxes, said Jin Renqing in an interview with the news weekly Outlook, according to Xinhua.China will not free e-commerce from taxes because it wants to maintain a neutral tax policy and preserve its tax jurisdiction, Renqing said.

Finance ministers from the world's seven major industrial economies agreed Saturday to promote the use of information technology because of its potential to increase economic growth and employment. The ministers also emphasized, in a report released at the end of a one-day meeting in Fukuoka, western Japan, the importance of developing a structural policy that enables the private sector to make the most of information technology while ensuring businesses and consumers are protected by applicable laws and that transactions are fairly taxed.

The Internet isn't necessarily the great price equalizer it was thought to be, according to a recent study. While search tools on the Web make it easier for consumers to compare prices among competitors, online costs fluctuate even more than they do in the bricks-and-mortar world, said Erik Brynjolfsson, associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and co-director of the Center for eBusiness@MIT in Cambridge, Mass. The reason is that customers on the Web are still willing to pay more for high-quality service and innovation, he said at the eBusiness Conference and Expo here yesterday.

IDG Regulations that once stunted the distribution of strong encryption technology around the world are being rolled back at an encouraging pace, according to a new study by the Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC, a public research center in Washington, D.C. ; The worldwide growth of electronic commerce and the attendant need for privacy and Internet security have convinced governments to step out of the way of encryption development, EPIC...

The tax consulting company blamed a software glitch for accidentally allowing customers using HR Blocks efiling service to see other clients returns last weekend. While HR Block expected a corrected version of the program to return online by this weekend. But some taxpayers remain uneasy, wondering whether electronic filing is safe.;It scares me. It makes me wonder who has access to my information and what they will do with it if they did, said one taxpayer.;I probably would have done it ... but now that there has been a glitch, I probably would say maybe not this year, said another.