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To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (3082)	10/28/1998 9:29:00 AM
From: trilobyte	Respond to of 32932

Sorry i have to overlooked it ... tlb

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (3082)	10/28/1998 11:50:00 AM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32932

Internet Stock-Promoters Are Hit With Fraud Charges by the SEC interactive.wsj.com An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup In its first broad sweep of Internet securities fraud, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday it brought charges against 44 individuals and companies who used the Net to promote stocks. The SEC's investigation targeted online investment newsletters and Web sites that touted stocks in exchange for cash or stock from the companies they were promoting. The SEC requires stock promoters to disclose in detail such disclosure. In many cases the promoters failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid. In others, the SEC alleges, they provided false information about the companies they promoted. Richard Walker, the SEC's director of enforcement, said that the 23 cases involved total cash payments of more than $6.2 million, and payments of more than $1.8 million shares of stock and options. He said a total of 235 companies were promoted in cases brought by the SEC, almost all of them so-called microcap companies. Mr. Walker said that many of the promoters targeted by the SEC used spam, or mass electronic mailings, to promote companies. He said of the 23 cases brought, five involved posts on Internet message boards and 20 involved the use of Web sites to tout securities. He said that 19 cases involved the use of online investment newsletters, which sometimes included dubious research reports. The SEC has brought a total of 61 fraud cases since it started to police the Internet in 1995. Return to top of page \| Format for printing Copyright © 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (3082)	10/28/1998 12:41:00 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Respond to of 32932

Cheeky, You're slipping you missed this one: Web Sites Get Used To Protecting Privacy investors.com Date: 10/28/98 Author: Laura B. Smith George Paxson was impressed by the ease with which he found books at the Amazon.com Web site. So when the site asked him to fork over some personal information -name, electronic mail address, likes and dislikes - Paxson consented. A few weeks later, the Dedham, Mass., native checked his e-mail and discovered a personalized note from Amazon.com. It said another novel by Tom Clancy - one of Paxson's favorite authors - had just arrived on the site, if he was interested in buying it early. Paxson was pleased. ''In general, if I fill something out, I always click on the box saying don't send e-mail,'' he said. ''In this case, it was OK.'' Paxson felt comfortable about giving Amazon.com his e-mail address because the bookseller was upfront about its information-gathering practices. The site promised not to sell Paxson's personal information, but noted it would use it internally. As more Web sites rely on ''personalization'' technologies to pamper users in cyberspace, that kind of disclosure is becoming more common. Companies have realized they need to provide some assurances for privacy in what has become a data-gathering world. Last year, concerns over privacy had electronic commerce dead on its feet. Seventy percent of users were refraining from monetary exchanges on the Web, according to Stanton McCandlish, program director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. But groups such as Truste, a nonprofit group that's developed a ''trustmark'' similar to a UL seal on electronics, have worked hard to change that. Truste wants to accelerate growth of the Internet through self-policing -rather than government regulation - of privacy on the Web. So far, Truste has 220 licensees, consisting mostly of Web sites that have committed to disclose their privacy practices. Licensees post Truste's symbol on their privacy statements or with a link to the statements. At a minimum, Truste requires licensees to declare what type of information they gather, how it will be used and with whom it will be shared. Susan Scott, executive director of Truste in Palo Alto, Calif., acknowledges 220 sites isn't many. ''What is significant is that we have all the portal sites,'' Scott said. Portal sites are trying to provide enough products and services to become a user's entry page to the Internet. By winning those sites, Truste feels it is getting greater visibility. ''Ninety percent of U.S. Internet users will be accessing a Truste site within the month,'' she said. In addition to Truste, several groups have sought to develop technical means by which the exchange of privacy statements and personal information can be handled by software agents. These all have come together under the umbrella of the World Wide Web Consortium's Platform for Privacy Preferences Project. Its goal is to enable users to be informed about Web site practices, delegate decisions to a software agent stored on their computer, or tailor relationships with specific sites. The consortium has completed two drafts of its specification of a platform. ''Web site personalization is taking off, and we will see more of it,'' said Joseph Reagle, policy analyst for the Web consortium in Cambridge, Mass. ''An interesting characteristic of the Web portal phenomenon is that these sites are all personalized.'' He says consumers like Paxson are seeing the positive aspects. But the odd thing with privacy is that negatives may come back to haunt you. (C) Copyright 1998 Investors Business Daily, Inc. Metadata: E/IBD E/SN1 E/FRT E/TECH