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Technology Stocks : CAWS - Wireless Cable (New and Improved) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zorro who wrote (5536)	8/7/1998 9:32:00 AM
From: Joseph Moran	Respond to of 5812

Slipperyy as an eel - snippets from the June 30, 1997 annual report. "OTE 16 - RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS On May 8, 1995 CAI sold, subject to an option to repurchase exercisable at any time prior to January 1, 1996, all of the issued and outstanding stock of TelQuest, Inc. ("TelQuest") with a negative net book value of approximately $70,000, to Wave Holdings, L.L.C., a Delaware limited liability company controlled by Jared E. Abbruzzese, CAI's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, for $25,000. The gain on this sale of approximately $23,000 was deferred and was not included in income. TelQuest's involvement in certain operations could have, at that time, violated the Modified Final Judgment, if engaged in by an RBOC or an affiliated enterprise. In May 1996, CAI relinquished its option to repurchase TelQuest for a 2% equity interest in TelQuest Systems, Inc., the operating successor of TelQuest's business. In consideration of Mr. Abbruzzese's guaranteeing the obligation of CAI to MMDS Holdings, an affiliate of Bell Atlantic, which permitted CAI to complete the Microband acquisition in January 1995, the CAI Board of Directors awarded options to acquire 150,000 CAI Common Shares at $11.00 per share to Mr. Abbruzzese. In October 1996, two of CAI's officers formed a company, Telecom Service Support LLC ("TSS"), to provide subscriber installation, service calls, and warehouse service to the subscription television industry. CAI incurred approximately $348,000 for such services during the year ended March 31, 1997. Additionally, CAI has advanced $80,000, provided leased vehicles, and provided certain facility space to TSS. CAI periodically charters an airplane from Wave Air, Inc., which is primarily owned by Mr. Abbruzzese, in order to carry out business when airline schedules are not compatible. Transactions with Wave Air, Inc. amounted to approximately $278,000 and $103,000 for the years ended March 31, 1997 and 1996, respectively (none for 1995). CAI WIRELESS SYSTEMS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS NOTE 16 - RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS (CONTINUED) During the year ended March 31, 1997, CAI loaned $800,000 to Haig Capital L.L.C. and $200,000 to TelQuest Communications, Inc., entities in which Mr. Abbruzzese is a principal member and stockholder, respectively, of which approximately $175,000 was repaid by Haig Capital. In March 1997, Mr. Abbruzzese combined a $19,000 February 1997 loan from CAI, the remaining obligation of Haig Capital, accrued interest on both loans, and an additional $100,000 advance in April 1997 (subsequent to year-end) into one personal unsecured, demand obligation in the amount of $780,054, bearing interest at 14% per annum. In March 1997, CAI separately purchased certain used equipment for the Boston Project from Haig Capital L.L.C. for $107,000. The loan to TelQuest Communications, Inc. is evidenced by a promissory note in the principal amount of $200,000, bears interest at 14%, and matures in March 2000. The note is convertible into TelQuest Communications, Inc. common stock at the election of CAI. The Company is currently negotiating the terms of a joint venture with TelQuest Communications and CS Wireless, pursuant to which the Company will be obligated to invest $2.5 million in cash and purchase $2.5 million of equipment in exchange for an initial equity interest in the joint venture of 25%. The original $200,000 loan to TelQuest Communications will be contributed to the joint venture, and CAI will receive a credit for the principal and accrued interest on such amount against the cash portion of its joint venture investment obligation. Interest earned all related party loans approximated $63,400 for the year ended March 31, 1997. During April 1997, CAI sold approximately $2,112,000 of equipment at book value from the Boston Project that was not needed to CS Wireless for 20% down and the balance due in 30 days after delivery. Additionally, during April 1997, CAI placed purchase orders approximating $1,612,000 with CS Wireless for equipment needed for the Boston Project, taking advantage of CS Wireless' favorable pricing arrangements with its vendor.

To: Zorro who wrote (5536)	8/17/1998 2:17:00 PM
From: .com	Respond to of 5812

Sure got quiet here after everyone sent their letters to the judge. Is this what happened? August 17, 1998 Chat Room Monitors Struggle To Deal With Censorship Issues By NANCY BOYD KENNEDY Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION These days, the Franklin Telecom thread on the Silicon Investor financial message boards is a bit thin. On July 24, Silicon Investor (www.techstocks.com) suspended five of the thread's regular participants, charging that the group was plotting a "group rebellion" against the bulletin-board operator. Terry Widner of Louisville, Ky., who goes by the screen name of Jack Sman, is one of the regulars left on the thread these days, but he says the place just isn't the same anymore. "This thread is essentially dead," says Mr. Widner. "It's a shame, because this used to be a great thread. It offered a lot of constructive information." As individual investors flock to Internet stock-discussion forums, censorship has become a troublesome issue for those who operate on-line message boards and chat rooms. Webmasters spend hours reading through e-mail complaints from board participants, reviewing questionable posts and taking action against those who have broken their rules. And software developers are coming up with ever more intricate means of allowing board participants to self-monitor their threads. The way Web site operators respond to the rowdy and raucous masses that populate their forums reveals a lot about how they view their roles as overseers, and shows much about where they stand on the perennial American debate over free speech. For its part, Silicon Investor says it does not actively patrol its boards, but will investigate complaints from board participants and delete posts or ban people it deems to have run afoul of its rules -- most often for the use of foul language, personal attacks, spamming, solicitation or hyping a stock. The controversy surrounding Franklin Telecom, a Westlake Village, Calif., producer of Internet telephony products and services, arose over posts made on a thread devoted to the company by ValueSpec, a board participant who refuses to reveal his or her identity, but who frequently posts negative comments about the company. Many posters, including Mr. Widner, consider ValueSpec's posts "antagonistic." "I question ValueSpec's motives for posting since he or she claims to have no position in the stock," says Mr. Widner. Board participants bombarded Silicon Investor with requests to censor ValueSpec or allow them to tune him out. Instead, Silicon Investor co-founder Jeff Dryer decided it was the complainers who should go. "We feel that ValueSpec posts his opposing viewpoints in a fair way. It is often the pro-FTEL participants who submit messages that are considered personal attacks," says Mr. Dryer. Over at the Raging Bull (www.ragingbull.com) financial site, where the five former SI members now congregate to discuss the stock, founder Bill Martin believes it is his site's responsibility to provide board members with tools to self-censor the boards. Raging Bull offers a feature that allows a user to block out posts made by board participants whose language or views that user finds objectionable. The feature has been a powerful draw. David Neece of Porterville, Calif., known by his screen name Orangegrower, was won over by it because it allows him to weed out posts by the naysayers, hypsters and impostors he says often populate the boards. "A lot of us were fed up with the idiots on the Yahoo! [Finance] board. We pushed for an 'ignore' feature, but they wouldn't do anything," says Mr. Neece. Mr. Martin of Raging Bull believes that his site's "ignore" feature is not so much a tool of censorship but a technology that heightens the civility of his boards. "We've found that very few people use the ignore feature, but it does act as a deterrent," says Mr. Martin. Raging Bull also has programmed a unique feature into its message boards that cuts down on the use of foul language. Common swear words or vulgar expressions typed into a post appear on screen only as a series of pound (###) signs. Perhaps the most monitored of the bulletin-board communities are those of the Motley Fool (www.fool.com). It plucks posters from its boards to join its staff as paid moderators of board discussions. David Forrest, head of Motley Fool's discussion forums, doesn't view the role of the moderators as one of censorship. "Nobody likes a Big Brother watching over them," says Mr. Forrest. "The primary reason for their presence is to engage users and make sure they're enjoying their on-line experience." Nevertheless, the moderators are watchdogs. Motley Fool offers a "Fool Alert" key that allows board participants to praise or complain about fellow participants, and the moderators do warn offenders and remove people from their boards. And, Mr. Forrest says Motley Fool is working on a feature similar to Raging Bull's "ignore" technology that it calls a "kill file." The site used to offer this feature, but it slowed down response times, he says. By reinstating the feature, Mr. Forrest says Motley Fool will be giving users the same option that television viewers have to surf past objectionable material with a remote control. At the other end of the spectrum, Yahoo Finance! (quote.yahoo.com) takes an extreme hands-off approach. Not surprisingly, the boards have gained a reputation as an on-line Wild West. But Mike Riley, producer of Yahoo Finance, believes his laissez-faire approach has the weight of Internet law behind it. "The courts have come down on the side of the Internet as a marketplace of ideas, rather than a medium that needs to be heavily policed," he says. Last year, when the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, a provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that made it a crime to transmit indecent material to minors, it left one crucial section intact: on-line publishers of information provided by a third party cannot be held liable for the content they transmit. "The real weight of this ruling is that the Internet was granted the highest level of First Amendment protection," says Nicole Wong, an attorney of Internet law for Hosie, Wes, Sacks and Brelsford, a San Francisco law firm. "It affirmed that it is not possible to edit the Internet and that to require that would break down the Internet." Ms. Wong believes the court ruling was on target, but thinks legal protections will not prove to be the best way to regulate financial message boards. "Any legal or policy solutions will be outpaced by technology," she says. "Operators of on-line sites will figure out what the market wants in a way that law can't answer as efficiently." Intertwined with the censorship debate, many believe, is the issue of on-line anonymity. That anonymity creates an environment in which people can create and spread rumors with no substance and do a lot of damage in the process, charges Tyler Thatcher, manager of investor relations at Iomega Corp., the Roy, Utah, maker of data-storage and backup devices for personal computers. "Iomega is a poster child for this debate," Mr. Thatcher says. "Our stock was discovered in 1994 by the retail investor just as the bulletin boards were beginning to proliferate. We were a small company going through a period of tremendous growth, and a lot of the stock's volatility was due to the message boards." While Mr. Thatcher says Iomega is far less affected by on-line chat today, he does occasionally ask board operators to delete fake press releases that find their way onto the boards, or to remove posts of people posing as company employees claiming to have inside knowledge. In the end, however, board participants themselves will probably dictate how the issue of censorship plays out. Silicon Investor acknowledges that user pressure like that coming from the Franklin Telecom thread could force it to change its stance on the ignore feature, at the least. "We don't agree with it -- we think it just lets people create their own utopias. But if demand for it grows greater, we'll have to consider it," says Silicon Investor Webmaster Jill McKinney.