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Dear Subscribers:

This week we think you'll enjoy our feature on e-auctions. Regular contributor Jasper Clark tells his own eBay story and offers some great advice.

Meanwhile, we attended a conference in San Francisco last week about "Interactive Kids" and the industry that targets them. These events give us "snapshots" of what Web publishers are working on for children, grownups, and families. This time we heard about news developments in children's online privacy and new Web resources for kids and teachers. We'll sprinkle these into the newsletter over the next few weeks so as not to overwhelm you! :-) There certainly is other news to tell. Here's our lineup this week:

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Web News Briefs

  1. FTC to the rescue

    Last spring a Web site editor we know emailed us about having stumbled upon a page of pornography when she clicked on a link in a perfectly harmless family-theme-park Web site. We checked the situation out for ourselves, encountered the same problem, and have been trying to understand the situation ever since. Well, this week's news explained it for us:

    The Federal Trade Commission just announced it won a US federal injunction against some overseas porn operators who had "hijacked" 25 million Web pages, reported Interactive Week. What that means is, an Australian pornography company and a Portuguese "hacker" cloned legitimate Web pages (published, for example, by Audi, Paine Webber, the Harvard Law Review) so that, when users tried to reach them via a search on the Alta Vista search engine, they were "pagejacked" (sent) to pornographic sites. Alta Vista and the legitimate sites were just as much victims in this scheme as Web users were. So you know that, if you ever get pagejacked to an offensive site, it's not the doing of either the search engine you're using or the publisher whose URL you clicked on. The New York Times's piece on the subject describes what users experienced; both articles explain how the technology worked.

    In an email, an FTC lawyer told us that the injunction order was served on US-based Network Solutions (the company that currently registers domain names) as well as on the pornographers, so some of the pornographers' domain names have been shut down. Among other things, what this indicates to us is that - as long as domain-name registration is US-based - the US government will enjoy a unique regulatory role as the Internet develops. Another important piece of this story is the cooperation between US, Australian, and Portuguese law-enforcement agencies. It's an important story to watch.

  2. Tech help for teachers

    As we reported earlier this month, teachers themselves say they're technologically challenged. Well, help is coming (by this time next year). The College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa is spearheading a Web project by a whole group of academic institutions to help train teachers, according to the New York Times. The projects plans to "identify good examples of classroom technology use, tape teachers as they employ the methods, add footage of teachers explaining the techniques," then post results in a free Web site, the Times says.

  3. Good 'digital divide' news

    One of the Internet's designers believes the convergence we're experiencing of telephone access, Net access, TV, and computing, will help minority groups "leapfrog" the digital divide. Matt LeBlanc, one of the original ARPANET engineers (ARPANET was the Internet's precursor), was referring to the statistically documented gap between Internet-access haves and have nots in remarks he gave at a Washington, D.C., conference on the digital divide, according to NUA Internet Surveys. A well-balanced Reuters piece on the conference can be found at Excite.

  4. PC bundles this Christmas

    Not a big surprise here: More and more families want to network the computers in their homes (to share printers and Internet connections). So computer manufacturers are being responsive. To make it easier for all of us techno-peasants, they're shipping home network-ready computers, according to Wired News. This means that more and more new machines will come bundled with networking kits: hardware and software that simplify the process of sharing a Net connection and link computers using a phone line. If you buy one of these machines and try the networking feature, tell us how it goes!

  5. What price cheap?

    Last week it was Microworkz, this week Emachines. For anyone following the fate of companies making cheap PCs, here's news of more struggles. According to News.com, Emachines, which was expected to go public shortly, faces two lawsuits (from Apple and Compaq) and a report from an investment bank questioning the company's long-term viability. Note, such news does not necessarily mean the computers are bad, but it might be meaningful if you're considering buying one and long-term tech support is important to you.

  6. Warmup for the ACLU?

    Last March New Mexico governor Gary Johnson signed into law legislation aimed at preventing children from viewing "harmful material" on the Internet, according to Newsbytes.com. In June a federal district court judge blocked the law for free-speech reasons. The state is appealing the judge's injunction. The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing against the appeal, saying that Internet regulation is the province of the US Congress and New Mexico "can't pass a law that affects people in other states" (they're right, but we wonder how even Congress can regulate an international medium). The Newsbytes article suggests that the New Mexico case could be seen as a "warmup" for the ACLU, which in November will begin arguments against the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Implementation of COPA, too, has been held up by a federal court injunction. COPA has been nicknamed "CDA II" by its opponents because they say it's much like the Communications Decency Act (CDA) that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 1997. Do you have any comments on these laws? Feel free to email us via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

  7. Go executive gone

    There was a lot of coverage this week about the FBI's arrest of Patrick Naughton, a senior executive who oversees Disney and Infoseek's Go Network. According to SiliconValley.com, "After trading emails for seven months with a purported 13-year-old girl he met in a chat room, Naughton was arrested … as he tried to meet the teenager on Santa Monica Pier. His underage chat-room partner turned out to be an adult male undercover FBI agent." In a fulsome background piece about Naughton, Wired News said that "what Bill Gates was to operating systems, Patrick Naughton was to Internet content delivery."

    Parry Aftab, executive director of CyberAngels, experts on child luring and stalking on the Net, told us that, if the charges are true, the Naughton case supports their experience "that online predators are not the dark and scary men that children picture as predators. They are the kind of people we invite into our homes and our children have learned to trust." In other words, we need to help our children stay alert.

  8. Australian parents caught unawares?

    According to the Sydney Morning Herald, parents in Australia are doing very little "to shield their children from pornography and violence on the Internet." And that's according to Australia's first national report on use of the Internet by the country's parents and children. The study also found that only 6% of Australian parents use filtering software and half "take no role at all in monitoring or involving themselves in their children's use," while two-thirds of Australian children and teenagers use the Net (about 2 million) and about a third have their own email addresses Eighty percent of the country's teens reportedly are online. "The children and teenagers said they preferred to surf the Net rather than read a book, listen to the radio, or watch pay TV," the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Our thanks to friends at GetNetWise for pointing this report out.

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Online auctions: A seller's story

By now, most of us surfers have heard about proliferating online auctions - CNET, Amazon, and Yahoo! all have auctions, and eBay is all-auctions all the time. [Note: According to News.com, a search of Yahoo! auctions turned up x-rated material - a breach in the system, the company said.]

It would be interesting to know how many of our subscribers have actually used them! Even if you have, we think you'll find Jasper's experience enlightening. Jasper, as most of you know, is a self-professed hacker (see our "Boys in cyberspace: A hacker's view") and Net Family News contributing editor. Here's his story:

"My eBay experience first started near the end of my senior year of high school. I wanted to upgrade my computer, so I decided to sell some of the things I didn't need: a digital camera, a Web cam, and a Zip drive. The total worth would be about $250 new. I probably got $300. Needless to say, I loved eBay after that. I kept buying stuff when I saw a good deal and sold it on eBay for $20-$40 extra, which is quite a lot for the effort. By the end of the summer (before college) I had an awesome computer. It would still be great today, but I needed the money for college so I sold it for $3000 and got a laptop. That ended my eBay selling spree but - now that I've found Linux [the increasingly popular "open source" operating system collaboratively written on the Internet] - I don't sell off my old computers; I just recycle them as Web servers. But that's another story."

We asked Jasper how he'd describe an online auction for the layman.

"There are two types of online auction sites: one where the average joe lists his items for sale, like eBay or Yahoo!, and one where the company lists its items for sale, like Dell or uBid. EBay-type auctions are where it's at. They have better prices, more popularity, and a wider diversity of products."

Could he offer some tips for buying products in an auction? What followed his good-sense answer surprised us:

"My most important rule of thumb is to know what you're buying - if you don't know anything about computers, don't buy a computer. I used to be totally against buying computers from manufacturers, because I knew that you got ripped off, that they were not really upgradeable and that they were overpriced. But now I think it's actually needed because it's so supported. You don't have to worry about the thing breaking down. Some manufacturers' machines still are overpriced, but the vast majority - Micron, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Compaq - have adapted."

Jasper highlighted the key question in these early days of the e-commerce explosion: Does the e-retailer back up its promises and products with solid warranties, return policies, and delivery/return systems?

And if you're determined to buy a computer via online auction?

"The way to buy computers on eBay is simple," Jasper said: "Don't look for something new. Get used products - otherwise, it's cheaper and safer to get them elsewhere."

As for selling...:

"Trying to sell on eBay is hard. You have to really know the market of the product your trying to sell, because there are times on eBay when you can't sell RAM (for example) because there is a glut in the market (unlike right now). But I do know of at least 10 people who live off eBay. Some sell antiques, some computers, some sell whatever they can - buying stuff wholesale or at garage sales and turning around and auctioning it off."

Where computers are concerned, the best use of auctions is to "morph" your computer -keep it up to date - but that's if you're technically inclined! If you're not? Well, read Jasper's tip:

"The thing to do is to start with a computer that is as ahead of its time as possible, then every three months sell off part of it and buy a new part. This way you morph your computer, not really getting rid of it but not allowing it to depreciate too much. I realize it would take a whole "Dummies" book [e.g., "Selling Computers in Online Auctions for Dummies"] to write about all the little quirks of buying and selling computers on eBay. Basically, don't do it. It won't save you money unless you read my book [if Jasper writes it and when it comes out!] and really know what you're doing. The best thing to do if you need to stay ahead in the computer-lifecycle game is get a computer on a lease - preferably one that lets you trade for a new computer every 6-12 months. Gateway, Micron, and maybe a few other companies have deals like this."

We asked if sellers usually deliver the goods - what does Jasper know about fraud or ripoffs in online auctions?

"From my experience on eBay, it's usually the buyers who don't hold to their word. They bid on an item and, when they find that they actually won the auction, they say, 'Oops, I didn't mean to win this auction.…' But there is a rating for each person on eBay. If you get three bad ratings, you're kicked off eBay's service [a page in eBay explains the buyer and seller feedback system]."

You can find more auction expertise in a couple of fun-to-read stories in the New York Times, one on how people actually (try to) make a living as sellers in these auctions and one about an hour in the "life" of eBay (four users' stories). And in related news, we're seeing more and more news coverage of auctions cracking down on unethical or illegal activities on their systems. Here's an example in News.com concerning alcohol and tobacco sales. We'd love to hear your experiences, too.

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Children's privacy players

At the Interactive Kids conference in San Francisco last week, we got a thorough briefing on the state of children's online privacy. For starters, it might be useful to you just to know who sat on the panel. They're the US's leading authorities on the subject, and kids' Web site publishers were listening to them carefully. They are:

What all these people were discussing at the conference was the law called COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. An FTC recommendation led to its passage last fall, and the FTC has since been working out the actual rules that will allow children's Web sites to comply with the law. Here are types of children's "personal information" that the law says Web sites may not gather from kids under 13 without their parents' permission: first and last name, physical address, email addresss, phone number, and social security number. The final word on COPPA - what it requires of Web publishers - will be issued by Oct. 21, then the FTC will develop business and consumer education materials. On April 21, 2000, the FTC begins monitoring Web sites for compliance with the law.

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From our subscribers

On porn spam

Here's a tip from subscriber Regina in Texas:

"I have found that if I clear my [Netscape] Disk Cache and Memory Cache (under Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Cache) that it cuts down the junk & trashy mail by 50-75%!!!!!

"Also, thanks for the info on where to go when your helping your child with homework - Yahooligans! looks like it will help a bunch."

Of Web ratings systems: two subscribers' thoughts

  1. Michelle in Virginia

    Many of us are thinking about and working on solutions for keeping children safe on the Net. Michelle clearly has given this a lot of thought. In response to our coverage on Web ratings, she sent us several emails, sharing what she thinks about ratings systems and why she believes blocking tools will never be effective. She also offers an interesting idea for publishing "accountable" children's content. If any of you have reactions to her ideas, by all means send them in!

    On rating and blocking

    "As Web designers, there seems to be no way for us to keep up with all the different rating systems that are forming…. Keywords are great tools - blocking certain keywords could work for children - but that seems to be a very difficult and complex method of blocking. Like what if someone types in 'Fun'; just what type of fun would you block?… The only way blocking will work effectively is if all agree to use the same rating system. Currently a site can register instantaneously with the rating systems. So what's to prevent them from changing their site once it is rated? What have you blocked then? (I don't expect a lot of this to occur.) Now, even though some content not acceptable to children is acceptable for adults with children, my thought is that it might be more effective to just have certain areas which we let children explore in, much like what AOL has done [with its Kids Only section].

    On organizing and URL extensions

    "Basically, the porn industry could be separated from 'General Information,' just as 'Children's Information' should be separated from 'Adult Information.' That seems to be the biggest problem today. If the information was better organized, then areas could be blocked by consumers or they could just choose not to go there on their own…. We all could learn a thing or two from public libraries. They have been organizing data for years. If indeed the key to solving this problem stems from reorganizing information on the Web, then it will just be a matter of time before demand becomes big enough for the changes to take place…. Even after watching it for 10 years I have seen progress, and it has been great to watch. Rating-plus-blocking has been out for some time now. Even though it is a step in the right direction, without organization of the data these methods seem to only be scratching the surface…. The key to a rating system would be to get the designers to agree to use them first…. You would not expect to see a porn site with Government [a ".gov" extension in its URL]! Government sites are just that: Government. So divisions are already in place for most."

    A children's 'intranet'

    "If an educational intranet was developed - and perhaps someone has already thought of this because most businesses and colleges have them…. This would be great for parents and for schools, too. The key would be for sites to be registered by educational systems within an intranet. A seal such as the rating systems could be used to identify these sites…. Basically, the information - which would be allowed in elementary schools, high schools, and colleges - could then be accessed by the educators with options for each level. The public could still have these sites open to them with a current filtering system, or blocking software, though not as reliable as an intranet. However, schools and educational systems could link to an intranet, blocking any unknowns with a firewall. Basically, all you would be doing is offering what is already acceptable standards in the school systems to an online technology.

  2. June in Florida

    June, who tells us she's a grandmother, puts ratings and children's use of the Web in a social context:

    "By all means there should be a ratings system in place for parents to be able to control younger children viewing unacceptable material….

    "Perhaps if we paid more attention to what the young people (and some adults) are doing on the Web there may not be all these shootings, etc. Let's go back in time to when things were simpler (of course we can't - they call this progress), children were brought up to respect their elders, there was some semblance of kindness among children. Yes, I know kids would argue, etc., but not to the extent that they … pull out a gun and shoot everyone around them, not even people they know. PLEASE, people pay attention to your children: Check on what they are doing, reading, watching. If this invades their privacy - if it avoids all this violent behavior we are experiencing with this generation and prevents more mass killings of our young people - this will be a good thing. What ever happened to the concept, 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you'? I guess I am preaching, but I am a 74-year-old grandmother, and it makes me sad to see the children of today going in the path they are following. Yes, I am very aware of all the GOOD people but we all need to work together to make it possible for these other people to learn how to have a productive life.

    "I do hope someone takes the time to read this and understand that just a few people cannot change the path we are on, but all the people need to take a good hard look where this country is headed."

Subscriber comments are always welcome. When you send them, please tell us: 1) which item in the newsletter you're referring to, 2) if we have your permission to publish, 3) and your first name and state of residence (a little identification for your peers without invading your privacy). Thank you!

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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