White House Pushes E-Commerce Agenda - Update (news from newsbytes)
Hi J4TDOI (your chosen moniker is too long to write)<vbg>
Anway just came across this, see if there is anything newsworthy here that could possibly affect e-Commerce.
As for margin,I don't know not a big fan of the thing,I do use it sometimes though but only to buy established companies.
and as for where do I want to go today? I don't know about vg I am staying put today too late to go anywhere besides it's kinda of nippy out there,I am glad I am not in Canada right now though.Is it cold enough for ya up there. Aye?<I do speak Canadian you know).
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30 Nov 1998, 2:34 PM CST
By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes.
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
The market for electronic commerce is expected to top $200 billion by 2003, and the US wants to be the No. 1 player in that market on a global scale, but only on terms of minimal government regulation and interference, President Clinton today said at a White House ceremony.
Heralding his administration's accomplishments at working toward an open, global electronic commerce market, Clinton said "Our proposition is that the Internet should be a free trade zone. . . (but) I think we have to do more work here at home."
Clinton used the occasion to serve as the release date of the first annual report on the "Framework for Global Electronic Commerce," which was built by outgoing Special Policy Adviser Ira C. Magaziner as a method of formulating the US government's policy on buying and selling goods and services online.
Clinton and Vice President Al Gore cited various accomplishments that the administration has achieved since 1993 when, as Gore said, there were "50 sites on the Web." These included the recent passage of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the World Trade Organization agreement not to impose customs duties on international online transactions, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Government Paperwork Elimination Act.
The president and vice president, along with Cisco Systems Inc. chief John Chambers and eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, lauded the current administration for recognizing that the economy is becoming steadily more based on transactions conducted online.
Also listed in the highlights was the Child Online Protection Act, which recently has been stalled because of a lawsuit filed in a Philadelphia US District Court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), among others. Known to its opponents as CDA II (named after the now mainly defunct Communications Decency Act), the law seeks to prohibit children's access to "harmful" material sold or displayed commercially online.
Free speech advocates decry the Act as unconstitutional because the methods proposed for banning it, other than self-regulating filtering software, effectively remove such material from the Internet, rather than shielding it from children.
Clinton and the Justice Department had expressed misgivings about the Act, but the president signed it as a compromise to help move other pieces of legislation at the dusk of the 105th Congress.
Clinton also gave his blessing to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), saying "We have effectively privatized the Internet." ICANN, which was formed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which ICANN now has absorbed, was developed as a non-profit corporation to serve as the central administrator of the domain name system (DNS) that forms the locus of Internet and e-mail activity.
ICANN plans to assume control of the DNS from the federal government, which currently outsources that function, during the next two years.
While the Commerce Department and the administration have given ICANN the official task of maintaining the system and of equipping worldwide domain name registrars with the ability to sell domain names and numbers, many critics of the ICANN concept still are dissatisfied with the relatively closed decision-making process that it has established.
While today marked the official go-ahead for ICANN to begin the DNS transition, the president reiterated the US's commitment to world trade online as an industry self-regulated venture.
The hallmarks of a successful international electronic commerce strategy, Magaziner and the White House have said, include private self-regulation rather than government involvement; a "minimal, consistent and simple legal environment;" a market-driven economy; a decentralized government set of policies; and a "seamless global marketplace."
The administration has said that it believes that businesses involved in electronic commerce should be able to set appropriate standards for how personal information such as credit reports and medical records are used or distributed.
The European Union has gone on record opposing the privacy standards that the Clinton administration has found acceptable. A current privacy directive established by European Union countries sets far more strict standards for the use of personal consumer data and buying habits. These differing approaches to standards have set up significant barriers to global electronic commerce between European Union member countries and the US.
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