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Half The World Online By 2010?
Vinton Cerf, WorldCom vice president and Internet pioneer, told the Global Internet Summit at George Mason University in Virginia this week that his calculations say half the world's population will be on the Internet by 2010. Estimates are that there are 400 million Internet users around the world, growing by a rate of 80 percent to 100 percent each year. That means some 3 billion users, or roughly half the world's population, will be online by 2010.
But that will only happen if governments follow the business model to make it profitable for Internet startup companies, he said. And he has "some worries" that they may not, especially if there is a lack of access to high-speed capabilities for individuals. Still, some companies have found ways around that. Internet companies in Bangalore, India, do not find sufficient market locally, so they are taking advantage of the high connectivity in places such as the United States and Scandanavia, he said.
EU Trade Team Hits Town
The March 8-9 meeting between EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and U.S. officials will be key to determining how far apart the two sides are on the issues slowing progress on international trade fronts. It will be Lamy's first meeting with the new administration, and an important meeting with congressional members critical to the success of free-trade efforts in the United States.
There will be no formal agenda, but Lamy will be discussing prospects for jumpstarting a new round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, according to an EU spokesperson. He also will tackle bilateral issues and explore the Bush administration's ideas on how the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiation fits with talks at the WTO. There is now jealous concern in Europe that President Bush is emphasizing the FTAA over the new round at the WTO.
Lamy will speak at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning, followed by separate meetings with Senate Finance ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont., House Ways and Means ranking member Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., and Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee ranking member Sander Levin, D-Mich. Lamy then will speak at the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute before meeting with other members of the Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and wrapping up the day with World Bank chief James Wolfensohn.
On Friday, Lamy meets with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney before a roughly two-and-a-half-hour meeting with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick, covering a wide range of bilateral and multilateral issues, followed by a press conference. In the afternoon, he will meet with chief economist Lawrence Lindsey and finish with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
The European Union has been pushing a new, more amiable tone in its relations with the United States in recent weeks. And Bush announced this week he will attend the U.S.-EU Summit in Sweden in June.
In a supposedly unrelated meeting also in Washington this week, technical-level officials from the so-called Quad at the World Trade Organization — the United States, European Union, Japan and Canada — will meet March 8-9 to focus on services, e-commerce and investment. Joe Papovich, the USTR's intellectual property expert, will attend the investment and services meetings for the United States.
The United States and European Union will attempt to move closer together on the treatment of e-commerce at the WTO. The United States has tabled a proposal that e-commerce be treated as a separate group, while the EU position is that it cannot be separated. E-commerce in the WTO context cuts across several topics, according to Bertus van Barlingen, head of the trade section at the European Commission delegation in Washington.
The Quad hopes to pick up the pace on the WTO services negotiations, where progress has stalled on the guidelines for negotiations, van Barlingen said. "We are quite willing to move forward on services," he said. "We are not dragging our feet." The idea is to get some agreement between the four of them and take it to the rest of the WTO, he said.
In the services talks, the United States is more high-tech focused - strongest in the areas of telecommunications and financial services — while the European Union emphasizes construction, tourism and distribution as well.
Separately, a new paper from the Delaney Policy Group, titled "Is Europe Taking the Lead in Tech Policy," reviews tech policies underway in Europe. The paper argues that the United States must act to secure international agreements to keep in check Europe's more aggressive approach to policies governing e-commerce and online discourse.
Out In The Cold
The European Union issued a statement Friday clarifying that a European Commission Cipher Office official had not meant to suggest that U.S. government contacts or any other U.S. authorities received classified information about commission transmissions or about codes used to encrypt them. The official had made several comments to the European Parliament last month that raised eyebrows.
The statement also said the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) only checked a new secure communication system once, in 1991, and even then did not receive any information. Finally, it said the NSA listens to open and coded communications worldwide, but "that does not mean that the NSA can actually decipher everything that they intercept."
Also In The Media-Overreaction Department
The Australian attorney general's office issued a statement on Sunday that, "contrary to alarmist media reports, sharing e-mail is not banned by law." The clarification refers to amendments to the country's Copyright Act effective the same day that the attorney general said updates the law "to ensure it provides the same protections in an electronic environment as exist in a hard-copy environment."
The only way an e-mail would violate the law is if it were found by a court to contain "an original literary work," it said. There are an estimated 5 million or more e-mails sent in Australia each day. Maximum penalties would be five years in jail or $60,000 in fines.
Japan, United States Talk Broadband
U.S. and Japanese officials once again discussed further deregulation of Japan's telecommunications market in two days of talks in Tokyo late last week.
In the latest installment of years-long talks, U.S. officials also stressed the need for an independent regulator and more competition in broadband services, according to Reuters. They are expected to hold deputy-level discussions in the future. Japan is lagging behind its peer countries on high-speed Internet services.
Meanwhile, Japan is set to launch a five-year plan, called the e-Japan program, to bring itself up to speed on such services, according to AP. A key to the program is that it acknowledges that high access fees from the dominant telecom firm, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), must be lowered.
The plan would commit the government to break up NTT if it does not release its monopoly hold on the market. The e-Japan program includes invitations to 30,000 foreign experts to work in Japan, online tax payment for citizens by 2003, teacher training in personal computers, and legislative reforms to promote e-commerce.
Electorales.com Expands Coverage
The first Latin American political portal, Electorales.com, based in Colombia, has expanded its coverage to include Spain, Argentina and Peru. The move was the first of five planned stages of expansion in 2001. The site was launched last September and includes political coverage of the U.S. Latino community.
- by William New
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