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Britain Wants To Store More Data
by William New
The British government aims to take steps to require communications service providers to retain more data, British Home Secretary David Blunkett told the House of Commons on Monday.
The measures will enable the providers "to retain data generated in the course of their business, namely the records of calls made and other data -- not the content," a government statement said. Government will work with the industry on a code of practice to move the idea forward, it said.
In other news, the Labour Party's Graham Allen, a member of parliament, this week proposed that all legislation be placed online for public comment before action in the House of Commons, according to the Guardian.
European Businesses Take Refuge Online
Some 60 percent of European businesses plan to increase investment in e-commerce by an average of 15 percent in the next 12 months, according to a report by consulting firm Accenture released this week. In addition, 50 percent of businesses expect to be pursuing "major opportunities" in wireless commerce within three years, the study found.
Accenture said the results are "surprising" given the weakened economy and the blows to the dot-com sector in the past year. The report, "The Unexpected eEurope," also found that the number of executives who reported their e-commerce ventures were successful rose from 34 percent last year to 51 percent.
The survey encompassed 840 businesses from 25 countries -- four of them non-European, including the United States. The majority saw the introduction of the euro and the planned enlargement of the European Union as strengthening e-commerce in Europe.
Pressure To Relocate WTO Meeting Mounts
Top trade officials from Qatar are headed back to Doha, the Qatari capital, to discuss suggestions from other World Trade Organization countries that the trade ministerial scheduled for Nov. 9-13 in Doha be relocated, probably to Geneva, for security reasons. The decision came after an informal ministerial in Singapore over the weekend.
Officials from the WTO and the United States have praised Qatar's preparations for the meeting, but they are prepared to change the venue soon. For now, preparations in Doha are progressing, a WTO spokesman said this week. Qatari officials insist that their nation is safe despite the war against terrorism. But any of the 142 members of the WTO could reconvene the General Council -- the top body within the WTO -- immediately to consider calls to relocate the ministerial.
Officials insisted that the meeting dates would remain the same even if the location changes. "If you postpone, you will start to see the process begin to sag," the spokesman said.
Prospects for a new round of trade negotiations this fall are "certainly good," one WTO official said. "If you compare with [the failed 1999 ministerial in] Seattle, there is no comparison. We have a text people have agreed on as the basis for negotiation."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick flatly denied Tuesday officials have discussed postponing the WTO ministerial. He said the 22 ministers who met in Singapore agreed on the need to go forward in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in order to rebuild confidence in international systems, signal a commitment to open markets and advance long-term efforts to liberalize economies.
Oh, Canada, The Trusted Arbitrator
Canadian Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew, speaking in Tokyo just before the Singapore "mini-ministerial," called on Japan to join Canada in helping reconcile differences between the United States and the European Union over the agenda for a new WTO round. Those four WTO members collectively comprise an influential group known as the Quad.
Pettigrew, who reportedly scaled a wall to escape the clutches of protestors in Seattle in 1999, has redoubled his resolve for new talks. He said he is "cautiously optimistic" that a new round will be launched, though "real differences" remain on the agenda and many developing countries "are not yet convinced of the benefits of new negotiations."
More Talk About Trade ... And Terrorism
Officials gathering in Shanghai for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting this week will hear about the need for new WTO talks, Zoellick said. APEC host China is pushing for the negotiation, as it will be included for the first time.
Zoellick added that the officials also will discuss transparency in government and ways to smooth business between nations, such as streamlined customs measures.
President Bush will arrive in Shanghai on Thursday, and will meet separately with the presidents of China and Korea on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, Bush will meet individually with the leaders of Malaysia, Japan, Brunei, Peru, Singapore and Russia. He also will participate in the overall APEC leaders' meeting. He returns to Washington on Monday.
Bush's short-term schedule also includes a meeting with Wolfgang Schuessel, the Federal Chancellor of Austria, in Washington on Nov. 1. Austria has offered its support in the U.S. fight against terrorism, the White House said.
And on Nov. 30, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand will visit Washington. The two leaders likely will discuss counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, money-laundering and alien-smuggling.
Your People Won't Need To Call My People
The European Union on Tuesday launched the pilot phase of the European Extra-Judicial Network (EEJ-Net) for settling out-of-court consumer disputes involving suppliers from other EU countries, or from Norway or Iceland.
The program is intended in part to encourage consumers to buy goods online. Each participating country has created a clearinghouse where consumers can obtain information about and assistance in accessing systems of alternative dispute resolution.
The EEJ-Net is complemented by FIN-NET, the already operational EU-wide out-of-court complaints network for financial services, the European Union said.
In other European news, the European Commission is arranging a high-level international conference on e-government in Brussels. The conference, scheduled for Nov. 29-30, will exhibit applications that have worked in practice, a commission spokesman said.
The European Union also is expected to complete an assessment of efforts to "unbundle" the dominant telecommunications operators' networks by opening them to competitors.
And EU Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen will speak at the University of Missouri on Nov. 15, before meeting with U.S. officials in Washington and giving at least one speech in Nov. 16.
Australia Weighs Approaches To Dispute Resolution
The Australian government has issued a discussion paper on the use of dispute resolution in business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce transactions. The paper focuses on ways of obtaining redress for consumers in cross-border disputes for relatively small value transactions.
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