🚀 go-pugleaf

As a result of the conversation at tonight's general meeting, I said I would
forward several documents that I referenced.  These are :
        -- update on the Communications Decency Act
        -- information about Telecom Infrastructure Fund public hearing
        -- sample issue of Seidman's Online Advisor e-zine
These should follow soon.

Brief summary

Tonight's topic of discussion was the commercialization of the Net. We did
quick polls of the 15 to 20 people in the room, about who had bought and
sold stuff on the Net (30-40%), what the people who bought were buying
(music, information, a bootleg Nine Inch Nails cd), and what the people who
sold were selling (subscriptions, t-shirts, access, etc.)  With the rise of
the Web has come the evolution from marketing as soft and unobtrusive to
tactics that are hard and invasive : spams, unsolicited e-mails, etc.  As
Steve Case, AOL, has pointed out, it's not the 6 to 7 million people online
now that is the market to chase, but rather the 90 million or so American
families who are not online.  The possibility of these people voluntarily
adhering to the traditional Internet cultural norms and values is rather
non-existent.  Software tools creating greater ability to filter out
unwanted information are expected.  Since most Web sites have chosen the
path of advertiser subsidized funding (as opposed to metered or fee-based
access) this is expected to be an escalating battle between software
intelligent agent defense systems and marketers.  At least one person said
that the advertiser based model was good because, in his opinion,
advertisers were suckers in general for paying huge vast amounts of money on
techniques that are not even known to be effective.

Besides marketing, the concept of online transactions and security was
debated at length.  Banks are hesitant to issue credit card capacity to
vendors because of the possibility of fraud.  If you knew Site X was
accepting credit card information, you could set up a trace on all
information going to that site and swipe credit cards. The biggest source of
fraud to banks, however, are those who secure merchant vendors.  If you
swiped my card, you could only really steal the amount of the limit,
generally 2,000 to 6,000.  A fraudulent vendor, however, could potentially
make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars before being detected.  This
is why access is severely restricted to those willing to jump though bank
hoop after hoop and is a severe damper to the establishment of online
transactions.  At least one bank, Mark Twain Shares (sp?) has bought into
the digital cash system and allows online transactions that are a
combination of cash/check like features.

Jon Lebkowsky also read some from and referenced an extensive study about
online business conducted by Hoffman and Novak, a.k.a. the college
professors who exposed the methodology behind Martin Rimm's pornography
study.  Business on the net was broken down into different segments : online
storefronts, Internet presences, content providers, malls, etc.  Jon
promised to add a link to the EFF-Austin web site.
(http://www.io.com/~efaustin.html).

   [Note from jonl: We've added the link to Project 2000 and the link to 
    the blacklist info (spam-related). Hoffman and Novak were involved
    in exposing Marty Rimm's methodology, but Mike Godwin should be given
    most of the credit, IMO.]

It was suggested that commercialization, electronic commerce, and the ethics
involved be a large Public Forum.  It is a strong possibility.


David Smith               * "We truly believe that even though we live in an
evil 
bladex@bga.com            *  world, if you can stand up with a stronger
will, then you
President, EFF-Austin     *  can't be beaten down. This is the true spirit
of the
Board of Directors, CTCLU *  EFF-Austin member"  -- John Woo