Internet software piracy is growing at 700 percent a year and could make traditional forms of piracy appear quaint by comparison, an industry-funded watchdog says.
The Internet, said Robert Kruger, vice president of the Business Software Alliance, is "a home shoplifting network where you don't have to walk past a security guard or security panel."
Kruger, speaking today at a news conference in piracy haven Singapore (he'll also visit Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Australia), said he was calling for more education, legislation, and enforcement to curb Internet piracy, which, while not as pervasive as end-user or syndicated piracy, is an exponentially larger problem because of the Net's global reach and ease of transmission.
He said software theft over the Internet undermines efforts to promote electronic commerce and make it a safe way of doing business.
Alliance officials said leads about Web sites suspected of offering unauthorized products have grown to hundreds a month. In Singapore, more than 30 leads were received in the past year. Kruger said these were being investigated but no prosecutions had yet been made.
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Wider registry reach: Expanding beyond its base as the dominant supplier of commercial Internet addresses in the United States, Network Solutions said today that it had acquired Internet Domain Names, a US firm that specializes in registering international addresses. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Total registrations for the country-code domains in which Internet Domain specializes -- such as Germany's .de, the United Kingdom's .uk, Sweden's .se, and Denmark's .dk -- were more than 500,000 through 1997, Network Solutions said.
The company said its acquisition of Internet Domain will enable it to provide customers with easy, one-stop search, shopping, and registration services for domain names in locations around the world. Network Solutions' exclusive government contract is slated to end in September under a Clinton administration plan to promote competition among private firms providing such services.
Reuters contributed to this report.
