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Date: Monday, November 27, 2000, 8:48 AM -0500
From: Faulkner Information Services <mailserver@faulknerinfo.com>
To: ???
Subject: Faulkner Cyberscape Digest 11/22/00



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CyberScape Digest

CyberScape Digest is a weekly roundup of top internet stories. This issue
covers events from Monday 11/20/00 through Wednesday 11/22/00. 
  
Time Warner Opens its Fat Pipes to EarthLink
Many companies made deals this month, but very few caused as many jaws to
drop as the one between Time Warner and EarthLink. Hoping to speed up the
approval process for its merger with America Online, the entertainment
company signed a deal with AOL's biggest competitor to allow it to offer
high-speed Web services on Time Warner's cable network. The deal comes in
the wake of insistence from federal regulators that the companies open
their broadband lines to rival ISPs, and just after a revelation by the
merger partners that their transaction probably would not close until late
December or early 2001. In any case, EarthLink subscribers will have to be
patient; the number two ISP won't launch the services until the second half
of next year. Other details of the agreement were not disclosed.

French Ruling Against Yahoo! Raises Controversy
After a hard-fought, seven-month long legal battle, a French court gave
Yahoo! three months to devise a method for blocking France-based surfers
from all of its online auctions featuring Nazi paraphernalia. Yahoo!
already forbids such auctions on its French Web site, but permits them at
its main site. France's laws prohibit the selling of Nazi-related items.
Should Yahoo! fail to abide by the ruling, it will be fined 100,000 francs
(US$13,000) for each day French Internet users could still access the
offending auctions. For its part, Yahoo! says that such users cannot be
blocked effectively; a French surfer connecting to the Internet through a
non-French ISP could easily slip through the cracks. The search service may
try to appeal the decision. A spokesperson for the company said that the
ruling "sets a very dangerous precedent," imposing national laws on an
international online content editor. Additionally, the filter, which would
black out pages according to certain keywords used, could easily black out
Web sites that are, for instance, devoted to Anne Frank's diary or
memorialize the Holocaust. 

Making the Mergers, Doing the Deals
Two birds of a feather came together when Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch
agreed to purchase Ticketmaster from USA Networks. The combination will
create a company specializing in entertainment tickets, local information,
and consumer services. The deal grants ownership of 52 million Ticketmaster
Online shares to USA; USA CEO Barry Diller would also become co-chairman of
the merged company, to be named Ticketmaster. Meanwhile, Phone.com and
Software.com completed their $6.4 billion merger, and re-emerged under the
name Openwave Systems. The new company expects to reach profitability by
March 2001. Everyone hustled to either make deals or start talks before the
long holiday weekend. Gemstar-TV Guide opened discussions with Barnes
&Noble about combining their businesses. In addition to its well-known TV
schedule listings, Gemstar promotes electronic books. It could use the
bookstore's leverage with book publishers to guarantee a supply of
material--not to mention the bookstore's, well, bookstores, more than 550,
to distribute its e-books. Fresh from its agreement with Time Warner,
EarthLink partnered with Netpliance to launch the EarthLink i-Opener,
available by the end of March next year. Users will be able to access
weather, news, and e-mail services without being connected to the Web.
Music company EMI Group agreed to incorporate Streamwaves' subscription
technology into its own subscription music services. Members of the service
gain access to EMI's music library for a monthly fee. While it sounds like
a good deal for online music fans, there are some strings attached. Users
will not be able to access recent releases; nor will they be permitted to
burn CDs of their music selections. In order to compete with VeriSign,
which now owns Network Solutions, Baltimore Technologies and Register.com
entered into a deal in which Baltimore will offer digital certificates to
the domain name registrar's customers as they purchase Web site addresses.
The certificates will allow Internet e-tailers to offer secure information
delivery to their customers. Free ISP Freeserve partnered with Eastman
Kodak to create a co-branded Web site for online digital pictures. Visitors
to the site would be able to make, share, and store digital pictures
online, as well as get their prints processed and delivered through the
service. It's a little difficult to feel confident about such a deal,
however, considering that Freeserve confirmed it is in talks to be
acquired.  

Carnivore Reviewers Deliver Report
The committee from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago
reviewing Carnivore, the FBI's e-mail surveillance machine, reported that
the device in general works the way the bureau described it to work and
doesn't "over collect" information. In its findings, the committee included
suggestions for improving the system's protection of privacy. The
Electronic Privacy Information Center slammed the report, stating that it
did not really address the privacy issues surrounding Carnivore. The
American Civil Liberties Union also chimed in, stating that the review
process, with certain restrictions insisted upon by the FBI, showed
government bias.  

Lethal Internet Climate Continues: Layoffs, Bankruptcies, and Stalled IPOs
Anyone watching the Internet business scene these days knows that layoffs
are often the first step taken by a company about to go out of business. By
that token, this week yielded a mixed bag of companies getting on line for
death row. AllAdvantage, an ad-sponsored Web surfing company, cut 35
percent of its staff, or about 150 workers, and is trying to turn itself
into a B2B firm. Online audio and video company Burst.com saw its bubble
burst, and gave pink slips to 80 percent of its workers. The deepest cuts
occurred in marketing and sales; Burst closed six of its sales offices. Out
of 95 workers, only 18 remain at the company. Speaking of media online,
Internet movie and music search company StreamSearch.com laid off 50 of its
200 employees and will begin licensing its technology rather than trying to
build its own brand. Walker Digital, best known for being the incubator
that launched Priceline.com, laid off 100 employees and stopped funding
three start-ups: HighCircle, Atlantis, and Pulse. Though in difficult
straits, these companies are not dead yet. The same cannot be said for
certain other firms. TheAskingPrice.com, an online real estate listings
services, shut down because its owners could not raise enough venture
capital to keep its virtual doors open. Nine-month-old Broadband
Infrastructure Group joined the silicon graveyard, laying off dozens of
workers Monday, who were told that the company was going out of business.
Dotcomix's bankruptcy this week proved that even being popular is no
guarantee of success; the Internet animation studio counted among its
creations "Sister Randy" and Garry Trudeau's "Duke 2000." Needless to say,
a number of Internet companies have found the present market unwelcoming to
their IPOs. Firms changing their plans for an initial public offering of
stock included teen site Bolt.com, communications company Onsite Access,
e-commerce service seller ProcureNet, and Skyauction.com, an online auction
site for travel products. 

Outage Ticker: Evite.com, the Florida Supreme Court...and a Transatlantic
Disaster Party planning Web site Evite.com, inaccessible since November 15,
finally went back online Tuesday afternoon. There were reports, however,
that the site continued to malfunction into Tuesday evening. Meanwhile, as
several counties in Florida recount their votes to determine whether Bush
or Gore will become the next president of the US, concerned and curious
citizens clicked on the Web site of the Florida Supreme Court so frequently
that its servers were slow in handling the strain. According to a court
spokesperson, the servers are still up and functioning--which is
respectable despite the difficulty in getting through, considering the site
went from receiving 2000 hits per day to 3.5 million hits per day. A check
of the site at 1:00 PM EST revealed it to be slow but accessible. Finally,
on Monday, the telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE 3 broke somewhere between
Singapore and Jakarta. As one of the world's busiest Internet cables, it
connects Australia, Asia, and Europe, and the break caused a major Internet
traffic jam. Telstra, an Australian ISP, reported that it lost 65 percent
of its international capacity as a result of the break. Other countries
believed to be affected by the break include Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong,
the US, and more than 20 more. Many ISPs began routing around the damage,
which is expected to take several days to repair. The cause of the damage
remains unknown; a ship's anchor or an earthquake have been put forward as
possibilities. It is unlikely that a backhoe was involved. 

Cyberscape Delight: The Truth is Out There--and IBM and the Air Force Will
Find it Venerable, conservative IBM just filled a contract with the US Air
Force that inspired raised eyebrows and creative headlines. The technology
giant sold a supercomputer which will be used by the Air Force's Space
Surveillance Team to identify and track unidentified flying objects. Those
laughing at a notion seemingly reminiscent of the TV show X-Files should
keep in mind that about 9000 objects currently orbit the earth--including
some dating to the days before man set foot on the moon. The computer is 40
times as fast as champion chess playing machine "Big Blue," which defeated
Garry Kasparov three years ago. Its ability to process 480 billion
calculations per second will come in handy for improving blurry telescopic
images. 

Happy Thanksgiving from All of Us to All of You
Your humble reporter and the rest of us here at Faulkner Information
Services would like to wish you a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday. As
you enjoy your well-deserved rest, please keep in mind that our offices
will be closed on Thursday, November 23, and Friday, November 24--which
also explains why an abbreviated Cyberscape Digest is being sent out today,
rather than the normal full-length one on Friday. Our offices will reopen
on Monday, November 27.
   


*** Terri Wells, Faulkner Information Services *** 

  

CyberScape Digest, Copyright 2000, Faulkner Information Services. All
rights reserved. 

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