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Watch Your Liberties: You know that various and sundry politicians, Luddites, and misguided leaders of the religious right are trying to legislate your digital liberties out of existence. You may not know that there's a one-stop shop for intelligent information on all of these boneheaded moves. Called BillWatch, it's a must-read. Catch it at [email protected] ("subscribe vtw-announce Firstname Lastname" in the subject line) or http://www.vtw.org/billwatch/.
Stupid Brit Tricks: England's national heritage secretary, Virginia Bottomley, is at it again. This time, she's announcing her intention to ban a Swedish porno satellite station, TV Erotica, from right-minded British telly screens. While the government admittedly cannot jam the offending transmission, it can and will make the purchase and advertisement of the service illegal.
We Sniff a Trend: The Net is forcing a radical new economy onto the complacent world of telecommunications, and not many phone companies seem to be noticing - yet. But in November, Bell Canada recognized the forest for the trees. It announced a plan that could quadruple the price it charges Canadian Internet providers, and Canada's federal telecommunications regulator has agreed to Bell's request. While Bell Canada claims it made the move because Net usage was eating up bandwidth, critics claim it was a preemptive strike: Bell plans to offer its own Internet service, WorldLinx, by the time you read this.
Net Numbers: A joint Yahoo!/Jupiter Web study uncovered loads of interesting facts. For starters, more than 55 percent of those surveyed use their homes as the primary point of Web access - happy news for entrepreneurs trying to start Web-based shopping :and advertising services. Only 8 percent said they use online services as their jumping off point to the Web. (Time to upgrade your browsers, AOL and Prodigy....) As for demographics, the average Web user is a single American male, age 25 to 34, with an income from US$35,000 to $49,999, and a college degree. More info: http://www.jup.com/.
Another Online Service?: If there is one thing we know for sure about Europeans, it's that they prefer their American culture delivered surreptitiously. Whatever you do, don't say it's American. This must have been the guiding principle behind the name of America Online's European service. Guess what it's called? Nope, not Europe Online; that name was already scooped up by a competitor. (Doh!) Ready? Drumroll ... it's AOL. Yup, plain AOL. As if no one in Europe will wonder what the acronym stands for. Meanwhile, Europe Online has scrapped its original plans to live on a - platform exclusively licensed from AT&T's Interchange, and instead is going for a Web-based approach. While the service hopes to reach every country on the continent by the end of 1996, it looks like some of the original media partners are pulling out or getting cold feet. What about competition from CompuServe and AOL? "This is our territory," says Europe Online co-founder Candace Johnson. "We're closer to the local and regional trends and are in a better position to respond to them," explains Johnson. What about the Internet? "The Internet isn't quite right for Europe. We want something more structured." In short, something more European.
