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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ERM who wrote (2994)	10/28/1998 12:22:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

What you quoted is internally inconsistent. It both asserts and denies the same thing. The SEC doesn't guarantee the accuracy of what is written in 10-K's. The onus is on the company to provide unambiguous and accurate description. Though you said you were aware of them you didn't add the next points: (i)any Affiliated LCO may terminate its exclusivity obligations if the Company fails to roll out the @Home service in such operator's territory by the deadlines set forth in the rollout schedules (ii) the Principal Cable Stockholders may terminate all exclusivity obligations upon a change in law that materially impairs certain of the Principal Cable Stockholders' rights (iii)Comcast or Cox may terminate all Principal Cable Stockholders' exclusivity obligations at any time if there is a change of control of TCI or on June 4, 1999 or each anniversary thereafter if it permits a portion of its equity in the Company to be repurchased by the Company at Comcast's original cost. (MSFT can request dissolving of Comcast exclusivity after 6/4/99)...The exclusivity obligations are subject to exceptions that would permit certain activities which could compete directly with the Company, for example, operators are permitted to (i) engage in any business other than high speed residential internet, including @Work (ii) maintain voting equity interests of 10% or less in companies that directly compete(iii)acquire an interest in a company that directly competes against residential consumer internet service... The !0-K goes on to state that exclusivity does not apply in aggregation of content, content, telephony, other braodband services not basic internet, internet not using operator's basic system, extra metropolitan connectivity, webtv, school and university usage, asynchronous transfer, streaming video, etc. Exclusivity is so narrow that it is operationally meaningless. That's why I said back then that "the MSOs don't have an excluding deal with ATHM". They nominally do, but its scope effectively means that they don't. What was exclusive was local basic residential internet and the T-TCI merger changes that status by abrogation. The 10-K statements need only be somewhat accurate at one instant. I can't be totally accurate either because it would substantially add to the already lengthy responses I give now. I might add that "The Federal Communications Commission may decide as soon as Friday that the telephone calls to connect computers to the Internet are more like long distance calls than local calls and therefore subject to the agency's jurisdiction, industry source said." Such a ruling would relegate all exclusivity to the circular file by several of the above provisions. Whereas back in May I couldn't anticipate that outcome necessarily, even the 10-K admits the possibility of significant FCC decisions impacting any basis of the Master Agreement.