Saturday, March 8, 2003

Any corporate director can be responsible about asking about business continuity programs and plans. Why is this so hard? We know that businesses beed these plans. "A U.S.-led war in Iraq that could spawn new terrorist attacks in the U.S. could be less than two weeks away, but that hasn[base ']t prompted many companies in the U.S. to invest adequately in disaster recovery, according to a new study released today by Dataquest Inc." http://www.idg.net/ic_1192210_9677_1-5046.html 4:59:25 PM    comment []

Personalization takes advantage of the best characteristics of the web. I can't see why the push for individualization, personalization, on-on-one selling and the like is not inexorable. How can any retail website ignore this capability? WHERE IS THE PERSONALIZATION PAYOFF? (eCommerce Times, 7 March 2003) -- The ambitious, site-wide personalization projects of years past are gone. In their place are efforts to identify which customers can gain the most from a more customized Web-site experience, and which of those will provide the biggest boost to a company's bottom line. Enterprises would do well to target personalization technology expenditures toward big spenders whose buying patterns are highly individualized, Aberdeen Group analyst Guy Creese suggests. Tried-and-true marketing approaches, such as segmentation, are useful for lower-value customers, he told CRMDaily.com. The term "personalization" is misused when applied to a variety of simple marketing schemes based on shopping behavior, Creese said. These include delivering different content to site visitors based on items they purchased in the past, for example, or search terms they entered while exploring the site. This is segmentation, he said, and it is a technological approach that is relatively inexpensive to deploy. One-to-one personalization, however, is an entirely different matter. It involves recognizing exactly which customer is entering a site and offering content specific to that customer alone. This is expensive application activity, and it should be saved for those customers that meet three criteria: (1) They interact frequently with the enterprise. (2) They are unique in that they fail to fit into pre-existing segment definitions. (3) They fall within the top 20 percent of customers in terms of profitability. For these valuable customers, Creese recommends offering a personalized Web-site experience as a perk. The effectiveness of this type of concierge service then can be measured like other customer loyalty or retention programs. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/20936.html 4:46:45 PM    comment []

Pennsylvania must want to drive internet service providers, known as ISP out of the state. Why doesn't it require Fed Ex and UPS to hold back on delveries of porn? It's bad enough that the state wants to block the internet's only profitable business model but also that it discriminates against the internet as a medium of delivery. I wish legislators didn't think that voters liked to see legislators demonstrate their public virtue by banning dirty pictures. I don't like that because banning any expressive medium impinges on the First Amendment's freedoms, and they're already endangerd enough. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030220-064011-7919r http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57804,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29418.html http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/gee20030221018767.htm http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/02/19/internet_filters/ http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/computing/2003/0302241019.asp http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-985216.html PENNSYLVANIA FORCES ISPS TO BLOCK ACCESS TO PORN WEB SITES (Salon.com, 19 Feb 2003) -- Pennsylvania is forcing Internet providers to block Web sites that include child pornography, a new legal strategy that technology and civil liberties experts worry will unintentionally interfere with legitimate surfing. In a precursor to a possible courtroom challenge, lawyers from the Center for Democracy and Technology will try to compel Pennsylvania's attorney general to disclose new details about the state's tactics. They are worried other states may follow Pennsylvania's practice. The center, which focuses on Internet freedoms, compared the blocking technique to disrupting mail delivery to an entire apartment complex because of one tenant's illegal actions. It said it prefers aggressive prosecution of those who publish obscene materials to wholesale blocking of Web destinations. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Republican Mike Fisher, is leading the state's effort, which already has forced Internet providers to block subscribers from at least 423 Web sites around the world. The state's Legislature passed a law last year permitting the blocks and imposing first-offense fines of up to $5,000 on companies that don't comply. Only one Internet provider -- WorldCom Inc. -- has disputed Fisher's instructions, and a county judge in September ordered it to comply. WorldCom's lawyers, while saying they abhor child pornography, had objected that filters placed on behalf of Pennsylvania citizens would affect all their subscribers in North America from visiting thousands of Web sites "completely unrelated in content and ownership" to the pornographic material. Lawyers for the civil liberties group and some technology experts said the strategy undermines the Internet's global connectivity by regularly blocking Web surfers visiting harmless sites that may be located on the same server computers as sites with child pornography. http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/02/19/internet_filters/index.html http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=15907 http://www.cdt.org/press/030220press.shtml http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200302/msg00156.html 4:33:51 PM    comment []

Coping with the borderless world of the internet is so hard. States are sop eager to collect income tax, but don't they see how hard it is, how expensive it is? Regressive and debilitating taxation policies are certainly the core of our decentralized tax policy. Should US retailers set up tax-haven jurisdictions to make internet sales? http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/048/business/States_look_to_lay_groundwork_for_levying_Internet_sales_tax+.shtml http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/5238732.htm http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_1771415,00.html http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=56764 http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=15841&SecID=33 http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2003/02/26/200302262023.htm http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=5&ID=87278&r=1 SMALL BUSINESSES WARY OF INTERNET SALES TAX PLAN (WashingtonPost.com, 21 Feb 2003) -- A plan to require businesses to collect taxes on their online sales has left many small merchants worrying how they would comply with what they say amounts to a complicated and burdensome mandate. Businesses that sell goods online are only required to collect sales taxes if they have a physical presence in the same state as the online buyer. But a group of more than 36 states, united under the banner of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, seeks to change that rule by simplifying tax laws nationwide to make it easier to tax e-commerce transactions. The prospect of filling out forms and mailing checks to the 45 states that levy sales taxes concerns Reyne Haines, founder and co-owner of JustGlass.com, an online sales portal for glass collectibles. "This is really going to put the hurt on the little guys," he said. "With the costs and all the paperwork that would go into that, I could see where this could get to the point where many of our vendors feel it's no longer worth it for them." Small businesses appear to have an ally in online auction giant eBay, which provides the online home for more than 75,000 entrepreneurs who earn $1,000 to $150,000 a month selling items through its service. While most of these sellers routinely collect sales taxes from customers who live in the same states where they have a physical business location, almost none of them do so across the board, according to eBay spokesperson Kevin Pursglove said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41336-2003Feb21.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A40364-2002Nov11¬Found=true -- and -- ILLINOIS JOINS SUITS TO COLLECT TAXES ON INTERNET SALES (New York Times, 22 Feb 2003) -- Illinois has joined lawsuits against Wal-Mart Stores, Target, Office Depot and three smaller retailers, accusing them of failing to collect taxes on Internet and catalog sales. The move comes as several states, facing severe budget shortfalls, are exploring ways to collect tax revenue from online retailers. "These are companies that should be paying online tax for their sales in Illinois," the state's attorney general, Lisa Madigan, said in an interview yesterday. "Here in Illinois, we're looking at a $2.5 billion to $5 billion budget deficit. We have to bring in revenues where we can. Potentially, there's a lot of money owed to the state." Forecasters say the states may come up short next year by as much as $80 billion. The states cannot currently impose the tax because the United States Supreme Court has ruled that their multiple tax systems would impose an unfair collection burden on retailers that do not have a physical presence in the state where a customer lived. Online customers are required to pay sales taxes to their states, but they rarely do. To foster collection of online sales taxes, a group of states, including Illinois, has proposed a simplified uniform tax code. One incentive under the proposed code is amnesty from state prosecution for failure to collect sales taxes once retailers agree to collect in the future. But the action by Illinois could keep Wal-Mart, Target and the other retailers from obtaining such amnesty in the state. "Under the State Sales Tax Agreement, there is no amnesty for a company that is already under audit or has been charged in a legal action," said Steven J. Rauschenberger, a state senator in Illinois who was active in drafting the agreement. The Illinois suits were originally brought as whistle-blower cases by Stephen Diamond, a partner with the Chicago law firm of Beeler, Schad & Diamond, who contends "the states have been ripped off" by retailers that did not collect online taxes. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/22/technology/22SHOP.html -- and -- CALIF. EDGING TOWARD INTERNET SALES TAX (Salon.com, 28 Feb 2003) -- With a state budget deficit that could hit $35 billion, California Gov. Gray Davis is rethinking his long-standing objection to imposing sales taxes on Internet commerce _ a reversal that could ignite similar steps around the nation. Lawmakers around the nation are increasingly eyeing online revenues to plug shortfalls that could collectively top $50 billion this year and $70 billion next year. Last year, Internet sales ballooned to $79 billion, or about 3 percent of all retail sales, according to Forrester Research. California alone may be losing $1.7 billion this year by not taking a deeper cut of Internet sales _ which is why two bills to tax Internet sales have been filed in the Legislature. If either were to pass, the movement to tax Internet sales would gain serious clout, said Utah Tax Commissioner R. Bruce Johnson, a leader of the push. "It's difficult to overstate the importance of California's participation in this project," he said. A U.S. Supreme Court decision says states cannot force businesses to collect their sales taxes unless the company has a physical presence in that state. While California stores with online sites faithfully collect sales taxes for the state, most online sellers such as Seattle-based Amazon.com say it's impossible to collect sales taxes for an estimated 7,500 taxing districts nationally. But 34 states and the District of Columbia are trying to come up with a simple standard from a hodgepodge of sales tax definitions to persuade Congress to lift a national moratorium against Internet sales taxes. Also, major retailers have agreed on a way to collect Internet sales taxes in 37 states. So far, California and other states with high-tech and investment sectors -- including New York, Colorado, Massachusetts and Georgia -- have largely watched from the sidelines. http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/02/28/internet_tax/index.html http://www.pe.com/localnews/statenews/stories/PE_STATE_0227_internettax.cd30a22.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21580-2003Mar13.html?referrer=email 4:23:05 PM    comment []

This is the sort of situation that makes me wonder about the war in Iraq. Bush would like to have in place a government in Iraq that behaves like the government in Tunisia, I'm sure. Is this the kind of freedom that we're committing mass amounts of human lives and treasure to achieve for the people of Iraq. I certainly hope not. TUNISIA ARRESTS 20 FOR BROWSING ISLAMIST WEB SITES (Reuters, 18 Feb 2003) -- Tunisia has arrested 20 men for browsing radical Islamist Web Sites, human rights groups said on Tuesday. The North African country tightly controls the media and jailed its first "Internet dissident" last year for disseminating "false information" on the Web, activists say. "The 20 men, aged 18-22 and most of them high-school students, were arrested on February 5-9 in Zarzis for entering banned Internet Web Sites," said the Tunisian Human Rights League, the country's only legal independent rights group. The government has made no statement on the arrests in the coastal city, 380 km (240 miles) from Tunis, and officials were not immediately available for comment. Rights groups say the government has set up a cyber-police special force to track down dissident activity on the Internet. The unauthorized International Association for Support of Political Prisoners said Tuesday police were interrogating the men still and refusing family visits. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=2244945 3:59:11 PM    comment []

From the "Misc. IT Related Legal News [16 Feb - 8 March 2003; v6.04]" newsletter of the ABA: CYBER-SECURITY STRATEGY DEPENDS ON POWER OF SUGGESTION (WashingtonPost.com, 15 Feb 2003) -- The Bush administration yesterday announced its strategy for protecting computer systems from attacks by hackers or terrorists, but it backed away from proposals by several security experts for government requirements and funding. Instead, the plan suggests how individuals, businesses and governments can meet the growing threat of cyber-attacks on computer networks. "Of primary concern is the threat of organized cyber attacks capable of causing debilitating disruption to our nation's critical infrastructures, economy or national security," said the plan, released by the Department of Homeland Security. The plan encourages companies to regularly review their technology security plans, and individuals who use the Internet to add firewalls and anti-virus software to their systems. It calls for a single federal center to help detect, monitor and analyze attacks, and for expanded cyber-security research and improved government-industry cooperation. The report is markedly different from early drafts that included proposals championed by Richard A. Clarke, who recently resigned as President Bush's adviser on cyberspace security. Among them were suspending wireless Internet service until security holes were addressed, requiring Internet service providers to include firewall software and recommending that government agencies use their power as major purchasers of computer programs to push software makers to improve the security of their products. "Leaving it to the vendors is basically the path we've been following . . . and the whole reason we have the problems that we have," said Eugene H. Spafford, a security expert and professor at Purdue University who frequently consults with the government. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10274-2003Feb14.html and http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984697.html and http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5189215.htm -- the final Strategy plan is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberspace_strategy.pdf 3:55:50 PM    comment []

Is it negligent to operate a corporate network and not look for pornography stored on the system? Does the failure to look for pornography on your corporate network constitute a hostile work environment? Does your corporation's policy say that the company is going to look for porno and will fire people who store it? Is that what actually happens? The article says: Child pornography is hidden on virtually every large corporate network, according to security experts.No matter how it gets there, having child pornography on a corporate network causes a litany of legal issues -- from creating a hostile work environment to criminal liability. Security and law enforcement experts have differing opinions on whether or not a company is held liable for illegal content sitting on its network. Some say if company executives don't know it's there, they're not responsible for it. Others disagree. Most say IT managers need to go looking for it. And all of them agree that once it's found, it needs to be reported to police. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/secu/article.php/1584551 3:52:08 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Noel D. Humphreys.