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To: May Tran who wrote (22793)	8/12/1999 9:27:00 AM
From: Americo Burgos III	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 40688

INTERVIEW-Executives push global online standards biz.yahoo.com Thursday August 12, 5:34 am Eastern Time By Deborah Cole BERLIN, Aug 12 (Reuters) - World business leaders are linking up to lobby for global online standards to make the Internet a better place to do business, the chief executive of German media giant Bertelsmann (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BTGGga.F) said on Thursday. Thomas Middelhoff is serving as chairman of an international panel of executives from some 30 major telecommunications and media industries, the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce (GBDe), that will propose international policy guidelines for the web. Middelhoff told Reuters in an interview that a global set of standards, ideally under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), was needed to to replace the existing patchwork quilt of national laws. ``The Internet is growing at an almost explosive rate worldwide. Those of us in industries related to e-commerce have observed that international guidelines are lacking,' he said. ``We are now interested in forming broad guidelines based on how the industry sees the future development of e-commerce.' The announcement comes just as a leading Jewish organisation filed a complaint with the German Justice Ministry accusing Bertelsmann's U.S. online bookselling partner Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq:BNBN - news) and its rival Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN - news) of distributing illegal hate literature in Germany. The case involves books that are legal to sell in the United States, such as Adolf Hitler's ``Mein Kampf,' but are banned for distribution in Germany. Bertelsmann said on Tuesday that it would advise Barnesandnoble.com, in which it holds a 40 percent stake, to block the sale to Germany of illicit hate literature. Middelhoff described the situation as a classic example of the need for international standards for e-commerce. ``If you understand the nature of the Internet, you see there is no alternative to dealing with it on the WTO level,' he said. The GBDe will meet in Paris on September 13 with top government officials from Asia, Europe and North America including French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley, and Japanese Posts and Telecommunications Minister Seiko Noda, Middelhoff said. GBDe members have spent the last several months compiling a report on the factors slowing growth in e-commerce in the areas of intellectual property rights, liability, security, personal data protection, taxes, jurisdiction and consumer confidence. The 29 executives will present proposals for self-regulation and in some cases legislation to create conditions on the Internet that make consumers feel comfortable shopping online and give companies clear rules to play by, Middelhoff said. He said despite the divergent interests of the industries involved, GBDe members had reached consensus on some 95 percent of issues. Only authentication services to prevent fraud and a few other security concerns remain disputed, he said. GBDe includes chief executives from Internet services provider America Online Inc (NYSE:AOL - news), U.S. media groups the Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS - news) and Time Warner (NYSE:TWX - news), and U.S. telecommunications firm MCI WorldCom (Nasdaq:WCOM - news). It also includes top managers from France Telecom , British retail group Marks & Spencer (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: MKS.L), Japanese computer manufacturer NEC , Korea Telecom and Japanese chipmaker Toshiba .