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E-Commerce Is On Asia-Pacific Agenda
by William New
As trade ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gather this week in Los Cabos, Mexico, e-commerce will be among the issues they address, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will attend the APEC meeting on Oct. 23-24 and will discuss U.S. policies to promote economic prosperity through trade liberalization, according to a release from his office. He will stress the need for APEC members to work together on goals established in free-trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization.
Secretary of State Colin Powell will lead the U.S. delegation before joining President Bush in Crawford, Texas, for a meeting on Oct. 25 with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Powell will return to Mexico after that meeting.
Topics for the meetings will include trade policies for e-commerce, and expanding trade and investment liberalization in the Asia-Pacific region, Zoellick's office said. There is a proposal on facilitating trade in goods and services related to e-business, one official said.
During the conference in Mexico, Zoellick will meet individually with trade ministers. The "economic leaders" meeting, including Bush, will follow, culminating Oct. 27. The 21 APEC members includes nations bordering the Pacific Ocean, among them Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan and the United States.
A Heritage Foundation paper issued last week said the APEC leaders' meeting is a "prime opportunity" for Bush to help put the global trading system on track to growth and thereby bolster anti-terrorism efforts. Bush should encourage economic reform in Japan and Korea, forge free-trade agreements, and set the stage for WTO negotiations, among other things, Heritage said.
Canadian Privacy Panel Sides With Consumers
In a handful of findings announced Friday, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner upheld consumer advocates' position that consumers should receive advance, clear information about how their personal information will be used by businesses, Commissioner George Radwanski's office said in a release. The commissioner also found that consumers should be able to easily opt out of secondary marketing of that information.
The findings were based on complaints filed by the Public Interest Advocacy Center (PIAC) last October, alleging that a number of large companies, such as MBNA Canada, breached the legal requirement of informed consent.
"Businesses can't simply deem customer consent to the use of personal information for secondary purposes on the basis of hidden contract terms or Web-site postings," said PIAC lawyer Philippa Lawson, who filed the complaints. "In order to meet legal standards, consent must be obtained in a manner that ensures that it is conscious, informed and intentional."
China Signals Cooperation On Cyber Crime
Senior Chinese officials this week confirmed to the secretary general of the Council of Europe (COE) that China is prepared to cooperate on cyber crime and other efforts against terrorism, the COE announced.
During discussions with Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen, Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee Jiang Chunyun, and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Qiao Zonghuai, COE Secretary General Walter Schwimmer offered the council's expertise in the areas of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Schwimmer is the first secretary general of the Strasbourg, France-based council to make an official visit to China. Shanghai and Hong Kong are the next stops on his trip.
Report: Global Internet Growth Slows
The growth rate of international Internet bandwidth slowed to less than 40 percent this year for the first time since the invention of the Web browser, according to data released by the research firm Telegeography. Aggregate capacity actually shrank in some major cities, the firm found.
Maturing Internet markets in Europe were the biggest reason for the slowdown because the region accounts for the majority of global cross-border bandwidth, the firm said. But the slowdown was seen in Asia and Latin America as well. Corporate financial problems also were a factor, Telegeography said.
On another front, the United Kingdom Internet Service Providers Association has informed authorities that it would decline to retain personal data on customers for long periods in order to allow use by law enforcement, according to the Guardian. The U.K. government has been considering requiring long-term data retention, but the providers said they doubt that the measures are necessary and are concerned about privacy and costs.
No Taxation Without Location
Software used to identify the location of e-commerce customers is not sufficiently accurate to meet requirements of future European Union consumption taxes on e-commerce, the Information Technology Association of America said in a paper released this week.
The EU value-added tax that takes effect next July would transfer the responsibility of collecting and remitting the VAT on e-commerce sales to non-EU companies. To do so, the companies will need to know customer locations, and ITAA said pinpointing them with recently developed geolocation software is not reliable.
Such software matches Internet protocol addresses of online customers with outside data sources to determine customer locations. But it can reliably establish little more than where buyers joined the Internet.
European To Launch Research Framework
European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin will host a conference on Nov. 11-13 to launch the European Union's sixth research framework program for 2003-2006.
The program involves approximately $17 billion, as part of the EU goal of raising average research spending by the body's 15 nations to 3 percent of European gross domestic product. The conference is expected to draw 6,000 participants.
The new framework will depart from past programs that aimed primarily at funding research projects, Busquin said in a Tuesday statement. The new plan "will be a key instrument in creating the European Research Area and in promoting Europe's excellence in science," he said.
The program is designed to help integrate research in Europe, and focus efforts on the most promising research areas, including information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology and life sciences. Participants also will address patenting and intellectual property rights.
Europe Seeks To Spread Tech Skills
In keeping with its stated objective to make the European Union the world's top knowledge economy by 2010, the European Commission is promoting the development of e-skills.
In a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, last week, Anna Diamantopoulou, EU commissioner for employment and social affairs, said over the past five years that the knowledge and high-tech sectors have accounted for more than 60 percent of total job creation in the European Union. But she said a key to continued growth is to close the "digital divide" in Europe. Despite a rise in computer connectivity from 18 percent in 2000 to 40 percent this year, Diamantopoulou said in an Oct. 17 speech, "huge gaps persist."
She urged more training, including of older workers and children, and encouraging more women to become tech students. She also cited progress on a plan to encourage more mobility of tech workers within Europe. The commission has earmarked almost $12 billion over six years for the development of lifelong learning.
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