Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : IATV - ACTV Interactive Television -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JackSkip who wrote (4278)	2/1/1999 7:35:00 PM
From: mike.com	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4748

Don't worry Jack, our day will come. Someday this stock will be hotter than Shop At Home (SATH). That is some pretty good news you just posted.

To: JackSkip who wrote (4278)	2/2/1999 2:24:00 AM
From: JackSkip	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 4748

All, read at least the first four paragraphs. If ACTV would simply write a press release talking about our patents and intellectual properties similar to this press release we would be sitting at $15.00 or more. IMHO Will Patent Pose Privacy Problem? By Connie Guglielmo February 1, 1999 9:07 AM ET While Intel was drawing the ire of privacy groups over its plans to identify PC users traversing the Web, a little-known software developer was granted a patent that could hinder efforts by the World Wide Web Consortium and major software developers to create an industrywide standard for addressing online privacy. Patent owner Intermind says it has no plans to derail the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) project, a yearlong effort to create an environment for handling the exchange of information between consumers and Web sites in a way that respects users' privacy. However, Chief Technology Officer Drummond Reed says Intermind, which is working on its own privacy service, intends to enforce the patent it was awarded in late January as U.S. Patent No. 5862325. "We have always said we want to license [the patent] and make it openly available at very reasonable terms on a nondiscriminatory basis," Reed says. To that end, the company already has proposed a licensing scheme in which it would receive a 1 percent royalty fee for commercial applications of its technology. The technology involves "intelligent information interchange - the automated exchange of information between providers and consumers, subject to the mutual control of both parties." On the surface at least, the automated interchange seems to cover the same ground as the P3P specification, which calls for the creation of a real-time, client-server environment in which Web sites "automatically declare their privacy practices in a way that is understandable to users' browsers." In the P3P scenario, browser users complete a profile designed to store some or all of their personal data - ranging from e-mail address, name and billing information to personal likes and dislikes. Along with the profile, users select from a list of preferences about which sites, if any, they would allow to share the data. Sites would be categorized depending on their privacy and disclosure practices - taking into account what data they collect, how they plan to use it and with whom, if anyone, they plan to share it. "The P3P is really an effort to create a common language and common protocol around privacy," says Daniel Weitzner, director of the W3C's technology and society domain. The specification consists of three components: a standard vocabulary site, used to describe privacy practices; a protocol for automatically handling negotiations, in real-time, between user preferences and site privacy practices; and a way to exchange personal information between the user and site, assuming that a privacy agreement has been reached. Microsoft and Netscape Communications both say they plan to support the specification in future releases of their browsers. The W3C says it has been aware of Intermind's claims for several months, but has not yet reviewed the patent. "We fully intend to do what needs to be done to defend the openness of our application," Weitzner says, adding that the P3P project is nearing completion. The W3C plans to release its "last call" draft of the spec this month, and it expects developers to build elements of P3P into their products later this year. But one member of the P3P working group, who asked to remain anonymous, says the potential controversy surrounding Intermind's patent "has stopped P3P dead in its tracks" and will likely prevent P3P's widespread adoption until the issue is resolved. Not that its widespread adoption was ever guaranteed. The Web community has been wary of technologies that seek to pin down a Web user's identity, despite the goal of the technology, Weitzner says. The Secure Electronic Transaction technology, proposed by Visa and MasterCard in early 1996 as a way to securely exchange credit-card information between consumers and merchants, has yet to be widely deployed. Intel set off privacy alarms with its plan to embed a serial number in each of its new upcoming Pentium III processors. That plan was designed in part, Intel says, to promote electronic commerce; applications vendors and Web sites would be able use the serial numbers to link a PC with a user's identity, thereby ensuring customers are who they say they are. But Intel modified its plans to ship all of its new PC systems with the serial number active after privacy groups, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Junkbusters, threatened a boycott of the chip maker they had described as "Big Brother" in a parody of the "Intel Inside" logo. "There's a concern that any technology tool can be used for good and bad," says Susan Scott, director of TRUSTe, a nonprofit organization that "certifies" Web sites' privacy and disclosure notices. "It can't just be business as usual on the Web. Privacy is something Web users are not willing to give up."