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To: GST who wrote (85639)	11/29/1999 4:30:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164685

<<H James -- what is the mood in Seattle with the WTO meeting? >> Gst, I don't know because I'm down here in San Diego. All I know is that the reported lack of China's human rights has brought those concerned into Seattle, from all over America.

To: GST who wrote (85639)	11/29/1999 5:55:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 164685

Gst, does this help, in terms of what's going on in Seattle with the WTO? <<Free (E-)Trade Talks Come to Seattle The media looks to Seattle this week to cover the meeting of the World Trade Organization - and the protests waiting to greet it in what is being dubbed the "Battle for Seattle." Could anything that big land on the home turf of Microsoft, Amazon.com and Real Networks without getting a Net angle? No way. In preview pieces reporters predicted that, in addition to labor rights and farm subsidies, e-commerce would be one of the most contentious issues at the meeting, which will kick off a three-year round of trade negotiations. On Friday, Reuters' Adrian Croft reported from Brussels that Bernard Vergnes, chairman of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa, was urging the WTO to make permanent its ban on tariffs for goods distributed electronically, like software and music. A few years ago, e-distributors were asking legislators for moratoriums on taxes and tariffs to give a fledgling industry the chance to get off the ground. Now that it's off the ground, it looks like the distributors would still rather skip those pesky taxes and tariffs, as long as no one minds. There was something almost colonial in Vergnes' patronizing remark that while Europe was "partially in agreement" with the U.S. on banning e-tariffs, some developing countries "probably don't understand fully the benefits they could get from a very open and very free e-commerce environment." Perhaps Microsoft could send missionaries to enlighten them. August Cole's report on CBS MarketWatch painted a Europe that's out of line with laissez-faire America when it comes to the regulation of e-commerce. Cole quotes Harry Freeman, director of the Coalition of Service Industries, saying "The American ... approach is don't regulate it unless you have to, or regulate it at a minimum. The European tradition is how do you regulate it." Must be connected with that social-safety-net business. In its preview piece on the talks and the protests, the Seattle Times estimated that online sales would top $5 trillion by 2005, a third of it outside the U.S. This year's holiday shopping will be somewhere between $4 billion and $12 billion, according to CBS MarketWatch's Emily Church, and a small percentage of that gift-giving clicking will come from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In his weekly radio address, President Clinton announced that 4 million American families would shop online this year, and "I intend to join them." The cookie file after a presidential shopping session would make interesting holiday reading indeed. - D.S.>>