Electric Word
Calling the DOJ's Bluff Like desperate poker players holding weak hands, Department of Justice lawyers are trying to bluff their way through their defense of the Communications Decency Act.
When the legal battle got under way in Philadelphia on March 21, the DOJ strategy began to emerge: Reno and company claim CDA prohibitions against "indecent" and "patently offensive" material are so narrowly drawn that only hardcore pornographers will fall afoul of the law. They also contend that the CDA's "good faith" defenses make it easy for upstanding citizens to sidestep prosecutorial wrath.
Fear not someone called their bluff. Under cross-examination, ACLU lawyers made mincemeat of the DOJ's argument that a government sponsored content-tagging system would be a viable way to protect kids from Net smut. "The government is defending a statute that is blatantly unconstitutional," says Jerry Berman of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which organized the CIEC coalition. "We're holding the winning cards." A judgment is expected in June, with an appeal to the Supreme Court in the fall.
Todd Lappin
Searching for a Web Future Can't tell a Lycos from an Alta Vista from a Yahoo! from an Infoseek from an Excite? You're not alone: the "search" market is turning into a commodity business faster than you can say "brand identity."
Services such as Yahoo! and Excite which have guzzled up a raft of public financing while generating little or no revenue are attempting to redefine themselves as "high value" brands. And when that doesn't work, they're forking over upward of US$5 million annually for a spot on Netscape's search page.
The alternative, pursued by Lycos, Inktomi, and Infoseek, is to license their technology far and wide, burying it behind existing brands. As one director of business development at a prominent search engine maker told us recently (sotto voce, of course): "My job is to make my company name disappear." Preferably before the valuation of his company's stock does the same.
Ned Brainard
Who's In and Who's Out in Washington In
Reed Hundt Now that Congress has reformed the nation's telecom law, all eyes are on FCC chair Hundt to work out the niggling details. And don't forget: the devil is in the details.
Steve Case He's the Big Man Online. Back in 1993, AOL had only 350,000 subscribers. Now it boasts 5 million and could double that by 1998.
Janice Obuchowski Bush's former telecom adviser founded Nextwave, a company that is walking away a big winner in the FCC's latest round of wireless phone auctions.
Out
Larry Pressler Everybody wanted the ear of the Senate Commerce Committee chair when the telecom bill was in play. Now nobody cares about him. He may even lose his seat in November.
William Schrader After AT&T barreled onto the ISP market, stock in Schrader's PSINet nosedived, along with that of other Washington, DC, Net service providers, including UUNet and Netcom.
Rupert Murdoch Sure, Murdoch and his fellow media moguls want free space on the airwaves to go digital. But lawmakers on Capitol Hill are giving him static.
Mark Lewyn
The Brain and the Badge Want to finger a bad cop? Sometime this summer, the Chicago Police Department will begin using a crude neural network program to do just that. BrainMaker Professional will sort through the flles of more than 12,000 offlcers and spew out a list of cops whose records suggest they're drinking too much, shaking down store owners, or otherwise screwing up.
In test runs, Internal Affairs says BrainMaker picked up subtle patterns that eluded experienced supervisors. IA claims it would take a staff of 30 investigators to get the same results. The software costs US$795.
Hundreds of forces including Detroit's and even Amsterdam's have expressed interest. Looks like the Mark Fuhrmans of this world can run, but they'll have a harder time hiding.
Taras Grescoe
Virtual Justice Robert Gellman, executive director of a new Net arbitration project, describes a familiar scenario: someone in Finland posts a message on the Net that someone in the US claims is a trade secret. Vitriolic flames ensue until the courts settle things, many months later.
The Virtual Magistrate Project, founded by members of the American Arbitration Association and the Cyberspace Law Institute, hopes to bring incidents to a happier or at least speedier resolution.
"The Net is a very immediate place. People need fast decisions," says Gellman. Hence, arbitrators collect email statements and rule in three days.
"In cyberspace, it doesn't make sense to apply the laws of any particular jurisdiction," says Gellman. "What we hope will develop from this project is the law of the Net." On the Web at vmag.law.vill.edu:8080/.
Steve G. Steinberg
Web Securities After dictating a few minor changes, the SEC conditionally approved Spring Street Brewing Co.'s Web-based stockholder trading system earlier this year. Although Nasdaq and the NYSE aren't exactly quaking in their boots, Andrew Klein, CEO of the New York-based Spring Street, dreams the decision spells the beginning of the end for brokerages and middlemen who jack up the price of securities trading.
Part of the reason for the approval is Steven Wallman, left, an SEC commissioner and Wired subscriber who has been playing with computers since his college days at MIT. According to Wallman, the commission is enthusiastic about the benefits digital technology will bring to Wall Street.
Besides, he also sees some advantages for the SEC. "Unlike other technologies, such as the telephone, the Internet has some advantages from the regulatory perspective," says Wallman. "When you broadcast over the Internet, the SEC can surf it just as well as anyone else."
Steve G. Steinberg
Luddite Crash Pad: Town and Country
Shack Jail
size 10×12 10×7
Windows 2 1
Food rabbits and turnips pimento loaf
Entertainment books, bombmaking books
Plumbing no yes
Social contact minimal minimal
Pen pals yes yes
Sex life ? !
Supervision (estimate) US$10 million/year FBI hunt$1million/year postal inspection $22,000/yearincarceration
The Scarlet Letters of AOL America Online is looking like Puritan New England these days complete with community punishments. In the last three months of 1995, more than 250,000 customers were hastily booted from the service most for violating AOL's Terms of Service Agreement, reports investment banking flrm Robertson Stephens. "The bigger cause of forced removal appears to be antisocial behavior. We believe this number is surprisingly large," said its recent study.
At this rate, up to 1 million users will be shunned this year. AOL president Ted Leonsis may compare himself to TV programming wizard Brandon Tartikoff. But he's looking more like the Puritan magistrates dispensing the scarlet letters "AOL."
Ned Brainard
Digital Twist Weather is a touchy subject among filmmakers despite the millions of dollars at their disposal, they've never been able to order up sunshine or cirrus clouds. Now computers have given godlike powers to at least one director, Jan DeBont, who conjured 300-mph digital dust storms for his movie Twister.
DeBont describes the tornado as "the film's main character," occupying 25 minutes of screen time; Industrial Light & Magic whipped up the whirlwinds using proprietary 3-D animation software, applying 322 effect shots. "Because it's always changing, we could never have used a traditional model to create the tornado," he notes. "The computer allowed us to take you right into the eye of the storm."
Paula Parisi
Friends in High Places One benefit of the CDA: We know who our enemies are. And now, apparently, we may know who our friends are, too.
After storms of protest over the act, Congress flgured out that the Internet is becoming a force in US politics. In response, 20 leaders formed the bipartisan, bicameral Internet Caucus to represent Net users on Capitol Hill.
Spearheaded by Representative Rick White (R-Washington), the Net-savvy roster includes Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senator Patrick Leahy (D Vermont), Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana), and Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California).
Some members already walk the talk. In March, for example, Eshoo introduced an alternative to the CDA. Leahy and Burns have introduced legislation to counter the Clipper II key escrow proposal.
What's in the forecast? Maybe we'll see some more intelligent politics, if not policies, for the information age.
Todd Lappin
Southernmost Tip of the World Wide Web Sailing to Antarctica is all in a day's work for Mountain Travel Sobek, an adventure travel company. Nice work, if you can get it. For the rest of us, the adventurers and WorldTravel Partners launched TerraQuest, a "Web experience company."
Virtual Antarctica has everything but ice: photographs, maps, wildlife info, and dispatches from experts on board, including Antarctic expeditioner, photographer, and author Jonathan Chester and travel writer Richard Bangs.
During one voyage, the site was updated twice daily, with live chat sessions. A satellite communications specialist and a programmer carried three satellite communications systems and a gyroscopic antenna on the ship all of which may make for cool trips but can create logistical nightmares.
Project director Christian Kallen's next expedition is to the Galapagos Islands. Look for the debut of Virtual Galapagos this summer at www.terraquest.com/.
Susan Kuchinskas
