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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc

ATHM 23.10

-1.5%

Dec 3 3:59 PM EST

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To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (10010)	6/1/1999 5:33:00 AM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) of 29970

Dont forget also that AOL requires you start at aol.com >>please explain why this is a burden or undesirable. Its the central issue in how AOL controls its (and your) destiny, most especially when AOL is the ISP. You logon to aol.com with software that works only for aol.com and you are bombarded with aol advertisements. Everywhere you go from there is within the aol software environment which means they know exactly what you are doing and can hit you with more advertisements whenever they desire. (Technically you can turn them off, but the typical user of AOL has no idea how). No choice of browser with aol either, you get what they tell you to use. If people agree to this and are willing to pay extra for the priviledge great for AOL. It will bring big profits for AOL, but it will also kill them eventually. The humor is when they demand "open" systems. A channel, after all, is a commodity on the open market A typical television channel has a drastically different distribution path than an internet channel. An additional internet channel from a different ISP puts far more complexity and burden on the MSO than a dozen "cooking channels" ever could. And that is as you mention ignoring the issue of the upstream. This is a free market. Noone forced the MSO's to sign an exclusivity agreement with ATHM and noone is forcing them to renew it when it exprires. Many wont. Thats fine with me. If AOL wants to buy their way into an MSO's heart let them take their best shot. That is capitalism and competition at its best. At issue is whether to let the market or the government dictate. What if AOL buys out CBS? What indeed? What are they going to do, shut down network programming for internet service? CBS needs the channel too you know. Where do you put the CBS evening news? More significantly I am in no way convinced that the right to a channel for TV broadcasting gives them the right to connect into every head end in the country for internet service either. They are drastically different things. Eric

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