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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this second week of January:

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Canning spam (and other privacy problems)

Good, maybe mixed, news for consumers and email users: The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) this week launched a Web site for Net users who don't want to get spam (unsolicited commercial - or "junk" - email). The site, called the E-Mail Preference Service, is very easy to use: At the bottom of the home page, click on "Remove My E-Mail Address," and on the next page, type in one to three email addresses, check the appropriate one or two boxes, then click on "Submit." That puts you on a list that DMA requires all of its 4,500 members to check before they send out any unsolicited email (DMA makes the list available to all non-members, too). Any consumer's address on the list supposedly does not get "spammed."

Of course, marketers who are not DMA members may still spam us consumers, but the DMA says smart ones know it's not in their best interest: "Marketers use, as at least one measure of success, the building of long term relationships with customers. They do not want to irritate consumers who might be receptive to hearing from them in other media or who might buy from them directly without being solicited."

The service does have its critics. At launch the site "came under immediate attack," reports the New York Times. For example, the Forum for Responsible and Ethical E-Mail called it flawed, the Times says, "because it placed responsibility for reducing spam on consumers instead of companies."

We asked the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) - which has a much broader "opt-out" site for consumers - for their take on the DMA service, and they said it's a step in the right direction. "We're still looking for the DMA to provide all of their 'opt-outs' online - direct mail and telemarketing, as well as spam," said Ari Schwartz, CDT's policy analyst specializing in consumer privacy protection.

CDT's "Operation Opt-Out" aims to provide "one-stop shopping" for consumers tired of being marketing targets - a single place where people can remove their data (not just email addresses) from all profiling, marketing, and research databases, as well as find all related information on the subject. "It's still not perfect," Ari says, "but we try to make it as easy as possible." It's very easy - we tried it. Some companies don't allow consumers to opt-out online, so CDT has created a way for consumers to get around that problem. It has created a group of opt-out letters that can be printed out individually, signed, and mailed to marketers whose addresses CDT automatically provides at the top of the form letter.

CDT does agree with the DMA's critics, however, when they say that the onus can't be on consumers alone. "You need all three [approaches] for success," Ari told us, "marketing companies and industry groups becoming more responsible, legislation that establishes baseline [consumer privacy] standards, and technology that gives consumers more options." There's progress in that last area, too: The World Wide Web Consortium is just wrapping up its technology spec for the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). It is technology that will "enable Web sites to express their privacy practices in a standard format." The goal is for users not to have to read the privacy policy of every Web site they visit.

CDT's Opt-Out Web site is quite a service. If you want to get your name off various spam or telemarketing lists or if you just want to save some trees, do check it out - then tell us what you think (via feedback@netfamilynews.org)! We do appreciate your input and often publish it, with your permission.

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Web News Briefs

  1. Bugs Bunny will report to AOL

    You may have heard: Bugs and all his Looney Tunes buddies plus CNN, HBO, Time magazine, and a phenomenal array of other properties of the world's biggest media company (Time-Warner) will soon answer to America Online. AOL chairman Steve Case, who will be the new company's chairman of the board, characterized the merger as the "coming of age of new media," reports the CompuServe Newsroom. This is probably not an exaggeration, because, according to Wired News, the deal gives AOL about 80 million more subscribers (including Time-Warner's cable and magazine subscribers), up from the mere 20-or-so million AOL had before. And there's more:

  2. 'Schools are Wired. Now What?'

    That's what teachers and administrators are asking now, according to the New York Times. By the end of this year analysts expect 100% of US schools to be wired, the Times reports. In 1999 the figure was 90%. That doesn't mean that all classrooms are wired, but - like it or not (the article includes important critics and their arguments) - the trend is clear, and many educators have moved beyond the debate to the question of intelligent integration. Read about the experiences of first-grade teacher Doreen Capriglione in Harriman, N.Y.; high school teacher Ted Nellen in New York City; and high school teacher Sister Rita Lenihan in Philadelphia for insights into the struggle many educators face. They represent suburban, inner-city, parochial, and vocational schools. You might call education technology the integration problem of the early 21st century!

    We've learned a lot from talking with Web-using teachers. See our in-depth reports, "Junior high revisited" and "Interviews with teachers Marel and Judy", who teach at a college prep school and an inner-city junior high.

  3. Free ISPs

    It's looking to be a trend. Here's a bunch of stories about free Internet services. The Seattle Times reports on ad-supported Freei.net. CNET offers news of the launch of Excite@Home's service, mentioning AltaVista's in the same breath. The latter's service may be downloaded from ZDNet. The whole lot of free ISPs - including startups FreeWeb and NetZero - is mentioned in Interactive Week. An important caveat in AltaVista for people who connect mostly for email purposes: "Free Web-based email accounts are available to AltaVista Free Access users at mail.altavista.com. AltaVista Free Access does not currently offer POP-based email accounts."

  4. TV redefined?

    It won't happen overnight, Wired News says, but there are some entertainment-industry alliances happening that will render phrases like "prime time" and "channel surfing" meaningless. Meanwhile, interactive-TV companies are taking up the challenge in different ways. Some, like TiVo, are focusing on making it easier to manipulate TV as we know it now (e.g, instant replays on-demand); others are working on adding Internet functions and content *with* broadcasts (e.g. instant-messaging a friend while watching a game or voting on one's favorite band during an interactive music program). As if there isn't enough about AOL already this week, two news stories led with the company's preview of AOL TV at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas: ZDNet and CNET.

  5. Law laid down Down Under

    The first effects of Australia's new Online Content Law - granting the government to the power to force removal of sexually explicit or violent content from Web servers Down Under - could be seen any day now, Wired News reports. The law, "believed to be one of the most far-reaching content control measures in the world," went into effect January 1.

  6. English, please

    A recent survey of the online habits of US Latinos shows a preference for English-language Web sites even though Latinos are big consumers of Spanish music and books. According to the Los Angeles Times, the survey "offers a first peek at the shopping habits and language preferences of the estimated 5 million US Latinos online." The study was conducted by Research & Research of Puerto Rico for Boston-based Espanol.com, a Spanish-language e-retailer.

  7. Net security lessons

    In a thorough piece about the extortionist who stole 300,000 credit card numbers from CDUniverse.com, Wired News offers some useful perspective. Since the total liability of individual cardholders amounts to $50 (and in some cases credit-card companies even waive that), consumers aren't the ones needing to learn lessons from this event, Wired's sources indicate. It's e-retailers who need to develop better security. Sources include scientists, technologists, and the editor of the hacker quarterly 2600.

  8. Like them Apples?

    Coverage of the recent Macworld Expo in San Francisco made it sound more like a religious revival than a business conference. Nothing particularly new about that, but CEO Steve Jobs's announcement that he's removing the word "interim" from his title and rapidly growing sales figures heightened the fervor, apparently. For the Apple lovers among us, Wired News peers into the iMac's very stylish future (looks and user-friendliness remain supreme), and CNET reports on some very portal-like plans Apple has.

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The Net: Awfully American (for now)

Since at least a dozen countries are represented among our subscribers, some of you might occasionally think US imperialism will never stop. It'll just keep popping up in new places - like cyberspace. The Web was invented in Switzerland by a Britisher, but somehow it got very American very quickly. In a mind-expanding piece that is so very New York Times, writer Steve Lohr looks at the reasons for this 21st-century-style hegemony - why the "culture of the Net tends to be informal and individualistic, decentralized and hard to control." He reports that France and Germany are concerned about what the growth of the Internet economy will do to their societies.

"Like much of America's influence on the world," Steve writes, "the Internet lies in the arena of what Joseph Nye, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, terms 'soft power.' It's like rock 'n' roll or American movies, which earn lots of money, to be sure, but mainly influence other nations by offering an irresistible alternative culture."

But Steve goes on to say that America's hold may be short-lived. Though nearly half the global online population is US-based, "this edge in Internet use is expected to decline steadily."

The question is, does that mean that the "soft power" of US culture over the Internet will lessen as more and more citizens of other countries populate cyberspace? Or will the Net continue to reflect many values of the American economy (here are some adjectives used by Steve's sources: "informal," "individualistic," "relentless," "competitive," "volatile," "destabilizing," and "threatening" of institutions and the established order). For a look at examples of the irony of "success" in the American Internet industry, see a "The Way We Live Now" column in the Times this week.

[Interesting related news this week: According to the USIIA Bulletin, "Israel's leading orthodox rabbis have issued a rule that bans the Internet from Jewish homes. The ruling by the Council of Torah Sages mirrors an action of 30 years ago, when they banned television. The rabbis feel the Internet threatens the survival of Israel." Meanwhile, delegates at an Internet conference in Madrid this week said Europe needs to "work harder to catch up with US Web businesses." A Reuters article about the conference looks at the European Commission's eEurope plan aimed at giving all Europeans access to the Net over the next few years (in CNET). And a New York Times piece says mobile phones may well be the way many Europeans get connected.]

What do you think? Is American culture way too prominent on the Web? Would you like to see that change and, if so, how? We'd love the perspective of some of you who live in non-North American countries - but all comments are always welcome.

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2 books: Help for parents, help for teens

Two very good books with very long titles are out this month. One, for parents, is all about the Internet; the other, for teens, about "growing up and getting along" got its start in a powerfully good Web site. Both are available now at the usual suspects in online book retailing.

  1. From experience

    It's like the definitive baby book from Dr. Spock or Dr. Brazelton, or one of those " _____ for Dummies" books. Like them, "The Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace" (McGraw Hill, $12.95) is straightforward, readable, and written by someone who knows her subject very well. Cyberspace personality and lawyer and CyberAngels executive director Parry Aftab has made it her mission to, among other things, educate parents about the Internet - "so they have the tools they need to help their children navigate this wonderful resource safely," she says in her book. Here's a sampler of what lies therein:

    • The first chapter, "Bringing You Up to Speed," says, "The Internet isn't optional anymore - it's essential to our children's futures," then tells what parents ask Parry most about online safety.
    • Chat and chatroom abuses are explained.
    • Spam, consumer info-gathering technology like cookies, and user counter-measures are spelled out.
    • Parents are told what they can do if a child's missing and online sexual predation is feared.
    • Legal rights and abuses are laid out in a chapter on cyberlaw.
    • Appendices include model family and school acceptable-use policies.

    This book's equally useful to Net newbies and experienced users who don't yet - but soon will - have surfing children in their house. If you read it, tell us what you think - via feedback@netfamilynews.org - before you post your review at Amazon.com! :-)

  2. Straight answers for teens

    Annie Fox is author of "Can You Relate?: Real-world Advice for Teens on Guys, Girls, Growing Up, and Getting Along" (Free Spirit Publishing, $15.95). She is also known as "Terra," the respectful, straight-talking "Dear Abby" of Talk City's The InSite, an award-winning information, inspiration, and advice site for teenagers and young adults.

    We admit: We haven't read Dear Abby in a while, so it wouldn't be fair for us to say, "Move over, Abby." But maybe teens need their own advice columnist syndicated in newspapers nationwide. Annie/Terra would be a natural. She doesn't just leave teens with advice (on everything from "Sex, Unhealthy Romantic Relationships, & Good-byes" to "Getting Along with Parents"). She tells questioners "Where to Turn" for help or further investigation - such as Web sites like that of Teen Age Grief or the WholeFamily Center's "Divorce Page". The book includes and builds on more than 100 "Hey Terra" questions and answers that were in the Web site first.

    If there's a teenager in your house who's "talked" to Terra or who buys this book and reads it, we'd love to hear what s/he thinks about "Can You Relate?".

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Sites for kids

We're big fans of FamilyEducation.com's strong emphasis on the home-school connection and resources for both parts of family life. Dennis Randall, dad and editor of FamilyEducation.com's newsletter, clearly keeps the connection in mind when he picks Web sites for kids. He says his readers are asking for more, so he complies. Here's this week's collection.

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

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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