Articles by Chet Dembeck

The issue of Internet privacy seemed to dominate much of the e-commerce terrain last week as President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee waded knee-deep into the fray According to published reports, Clinton gave high-tech industry leaders a stern warning last Friday, telling them that they must quickly adopt minimum privacy standa...

Speaking at a forum held by the Aspen Institute in San Jose, California, U.S. President Bill Clinton sternly warned high-tech industry leaders Friday that they must quickly adopt minimum privacy standards or have the government do it for them "There are two [areas] which are absolutely vital to keep the information economy and all America growing s...

Recently, it has been reported that Russia is on the verge of cashing in on a growing boom in Internet use and e-commerce, if only -- we are told -- authorities would seize the opportunity and do away with bureaucratic hurdles The fact of the matter is that Russian e-commerce generated about $160 million (US$) in sales in 1998, according to the Rus...

Yesterday, both U.S. Democratic and Republican Senators expressed serious reservations about the planned merger between media giants America Online, Inc. and Time Warner, Inc "It looks like you are going straight down the Microsoft route," said Senator Fritz Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, according to published reports.

Arthur Andersen's Real Estate and Hospitality Services Group and real estate consulting firm the Rosen Consulting Group released a joint study Friday that concluded that e-commerce is having a substantial impact on the commercial real estate industry "The Internet's phenomenal growth and the increasing importance of eBusiness are directly impacting...

On Thursday, Wal-Mart, Inc. tapped former Banana Republic CEO Jeanne P. Jackson to head its newly independent Walmart.com Web site, prompting some industry analysts to believe that the mammoth retailer will finally hit its online stride While the down-to-earth fashions of Wal-Mart may be a far cry from those being marketed at the more upscale Banan...

According to published reports, controversial Internet advertising firm DoubleClick, Inc. has been receiving leaked personal financial information from Intuit Corp.'s Quicken Web site Intuit claims to have resolved the problem temporarily by pulling the DoubleClick advertisement from the Web page in question. DoubleClick has said that it was unawar...

Earlier this week, Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush hinted that he would not have allowed the U.S. to take antitrust action against the Microsoft empire Despite emphasizing that he would not comment directly on the ongoing case, Bush said at a news conference Monday that, "If you're looking for the kind of preside...

This week, a long-overdue precedent was set when the operator of a sports gambling Web site was convicted in the first case of its kind to go to trial The New York jury found that Jay Cohen, 33, had broken the U.S. Interstate Wire Act of 1961 by accepting bets and wagers on sports events via the Internet and telephone.

U.S. President Bill Clinton is apparently pushing governors to reach a compromise position on Internet taxation that would link a moratorium on taxation with a plan for states to simplify their sales tax structures White House press secretary Joe Lockhart reportedly said yesterday that Clinton told a small group of the nation's governors that feder...

Legend has it that Microsoft's Bill Gates looked AOL CEO Steve Case in the eye seven years ago and spread the following dose of sunshine: "I can buy 20 percent of you or I can buy all of you. Or I can go into this business myself and bury you." My, have times changed. This year, if the $160 billion (US$) merger of AOL and Time Warner comes off wit...

Last week, when giant Japanese conglomerate Softbank Corp. announced plans to take a $57 million (US$) stake in the online operation of Toys "R" Us, the "other shoe" dropped at the headquarters of eToys, Inc The reason for the loud thud is that Softbank has been instrumental in the success of such online powerhouses as Web portal Yahoo! and online ...

A new report by Forrester Research, Inc. shows that gradual consumer acceptance and strained business models will prevent online used car sites from achieving a strong position in the marketplace The report is particularly bad news for Autotrader, Inc. and iMotors, Inc., the two companies that are focused on pioneering the market for used cars onli...

In what has become a persistent problem for popular Internet sites of late, the National Discount Brokers Group reported that its stock-trading Web site was shut down for more than an hour Thursday as a result of an apparent denial-of-service (DoS) hacker assault The outage prevented 200,000 National Discount customers from placing stock orders thr...

Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain's recent record online fundraising tally of $500,000 (US$) in one day signals the arrival of a key new factor in the U.S. political process, according to a new report by Forrester Research Just as the televising of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debates broke new political ground, McCain's s...

District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson dealt Microsoft Corp. a significant blow in its ongoing antitrust trial yesterday by comparing the software company to John D. Rockefeller's 19th century Standard Oil monopoly that was broken up by the U.S. government some 90 years ago "Mr. Rockefeller had fee simple control over his oil," Jackson said in the ...

Last December, when Canadian startup Zero-Knowledge Systems, Inc. began selling a service that allows Internet users to choose fictitious names for such activities as sending e-mail, visiting Web sites or joining newsgroups, I was not at all impressed At the time, I said, "No matter which way one looks at it, this disastrous so-called service serve...

Online computer giant Dell Computer Corp. announced today that it is expanding its e-commerce offerings by launching a Web site hosting service for small to medium-sized businesses Dell's new hosting service is available on Dellhost.com, which appeared on the company's Web site late Friday.

Despite a well-publicized tripling of e-commerce spending last year, many e-tailers found themselves falling far short of the shopping season revenues needed to keep their virtual storefronts open In January, software e-tailer Beyond.com accelerated the so-called shakeout by announcing a corporate restructuring by focusing its marketing efforts on ...

According to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc., all online sales should and will be taxed just like brick-and-mortar sales. "The buyer's physical location at the time he or she takes possession of the goods should determine sales tax liability," the report says. Currently, under what is known as "nexus," e-tailers are only required to colle...