Caught In The Web

by Al Massey

"I had a quicksand box when I was a kid.
I was the only child...eventually!"

In a recent conference call with Web industry execs, the topic of "Money and the Web" came up for discussion. While it was generally conceded that money makes the world go 'round there was complete agreement that this old axiom hadn't migrated to the World Wide Web…yet.

The old cliché "many are called, few are chosen" can be applied to commerce on the `Net going into 1997. Every dawn brings new entrepreneurs to the "WWWait" but only a very small percentage are actually attempting to conduct business in a meaningful fashion. By meaningful fashion, I mean complete transactions.

David Taylor, VP of the Gartner Group, allowed as how "there is a difference between what is fun and interesting and what is valuable. We're doing a lot of marketing and information access, but not running our businesses on the Internet. Electronic commerce is an application in its infancy."

Most of the large businesses buying into e-commerce are still in pilot or development stages. A representative of IBM reported that "while over 100 customers around the world are now using their Commerce point family of e-commerce products, including Egmont Publishing Group in Denmark, Fuji Bank and Plus Group in Japan and L.L. Bean in the U.S., only L.L. Bean actually has a production transaction up and running."

The basic communications infrastructure to do e-commerce is largely in place and should be very robust (I can't believe I used that word) within two years but applications are inconsistent in terms of sophistication and ease of use. Businesses tend to look at the large numbers of folks on the WWW and aren't concentrating on the idea of customizing their content for individual users. I predict it will be three or four years before the Web is a viable business model.

"Mick Jagger and I just really liked each other a lot. We talked all night. We had the same views on nuclear disarmament."
— Jerry Hall

The Honeymoon, as they say, had a short life indeed. For one brief shining nanosecond the Clinton Administration and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) jumped into the same "virtual" bed and appeared to be in agreement on the export of cryptography products.

While cautiously welcoming the administration's Oct. 1 announcement on the subject, the BSA now says the Clintonites speak with forked tongue. The original policy, claimed the BSA, would have used "key recovery" to ensure that the cryptography could be cracked (for example to prevent criminals using cryptography to escape detection), but the interim rule proposes "key escrow." While key recovery requires encryption manufacturers to develop a key for breaking their own code, key escrow forces them to lodge it with an approved agency. A subtle difference in wording, "key recovery" vs. "key escrow." One word out of place in a 48 page policy statement and all data-hell breaks loose.

A BSA spokeswoman compared this difference to giving the police the power to apply for a search warrant vs. giving them keys to every door.

"Alcohol is a very necessary article… It enables Governments to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning."
—George Bernard Shaw

When invited to speak about the Internet I am invariably asked how a business can make money on the Internet. Ha, as if I knew! If you measure success in terms of dollars in the bank account then every dime you save can be termed a "profit."

To take this one step further, I recently had the pleasure of being on a panel with a representative from Booz-Allen & Hamilton, who stated the firm "reported" 1,300 percent return on investment in intranet technology, by allowing research analysts to more effectively communicate with each other and share report findings." In other words they made a hefty return on their investment by using e-mail. If that's not making money I don't know what is.

Standards-based, Internet communications is changing business communications infrastructures, allowing companies to more easily extend their information systems. With the rise of e-mail systems that can deliver HTML documents containing rich information, as well as video and audio attachments, and a huge growth in the number of e-mail users, companies now have a new communications platform.

"Why anybody would want to do drugs when there are computers available is a mystery to me."

As PapaData, the US Guv'-ment sets aside more and more cyberdollars in an effort to introduce technology into schools, the Yahoos, MicroSofties, AOHellers and NetScrapers are lining up and vying for the lucrative market. Microsoft has at least seven education related sites and AOL has plans in the works to increase its education program in the coming months.

Word just in from Excite, the search engine folks, is they plan to become the search engine of choice for schools. Hear tell Excite has a move on to establish a beachhead in the market of educational content on the Internet.

By the time you read this Excite will have kicked off their lesson plan with a comic strip and game that teaches children how to search the Internet. They plan to use this base to launch their search engine into the promising market of providing content designed expressly for schools.

Hard on the heels of Excite, Yahoo! has taken steps to enter the education market by sponsoring the development of a Web scavenger hunt called CyberSafari and a Web directory designed especially for kids called Yahoologans.

Many schools already have Internet connections through ISPs or their own networks, and the federal government is setting up a program to connect those that don't have access. At Napa High School in Napa, California, students have access to the entire Internet for free via a local ISP and the school's T1 line, said John Todd, a teacher in charge of technology. The school uses all the search engines and particularly likes university sites that have programs geared to K-12 schools, such as online writing labs, he said.

"A word to the wise ain't necessary—it's the stupid ones who need advice."

From the "forgive them they know not what they do" department comes word that a Minnesota judge handed down an order in early December on a long-pending civil suit against an online gambling company. The order on Granite Gate Resorts v. Minnesota will allow the state to sue a Nevada company for its intention to put up a sports betting site - even though the company intends to run its gambling business out of Belize. Now let's all get this straight: the state of Minnesota is suing a Nevada company over an operation the are planning in the country of Belize.

"This could have a chilling effect on a lot more than online gambling," says EFF staff attorney Shari Steele. "It will reduce anyone doing anything on the Net to the lowest common denominator" as dictated by the states.

This little dance all started when Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III determined that Minnesota citizens were able to check out a Web site put up by Granite Gate Resorts in Las Vegas called Wager Net. Trey Hugh's reasoning was that, even though gambling is legal in Nevada and Belize, it is illegal in Minnesota and he allowed as how "if you could access it in Minnesota, then it was illegal."

Humphrey claims that the Wager Net announcements implied that gambling was legal, and sued the company for fraud; Wager Net director Kerry Rogers in turn filed a motion to dismiss the case due to lack of jurisdiction.

The good judge's order will make Granite Gate Resorts liable under Minnesota law, in one of the first cases discussing whether a state can declare jurisdiction over online content. A case in 1994, US v. Thomas, allowed the operators of a porn BBS in California to be convicted in Tennessee; the legality of the decision has been hotly debated ever since, while the BBS operators sit in prison.

Al Massey is a HAL-PC member who may be contacted at almas@hal-pc.org.