Thursday
31st August 2000
ST. GEORGE HIT BY DENIAL
OF SERVICE ATTACK
Less than a few days after
publicly announcing its plans to slash 1,450 of its 8,000 staff positions
- 900 of them forcibly - and transform a number of its branches into ATMs,
Australia's St. George bank
revealed today that its web site has been rendered almost useless since Monday
by a denial-of-service attack similar to the ones that brought down a number
of high-profile US sites earlier this year. The bank - Australia's fifth
largest - will place nationwide newspaper advertisements tomorrow asking
its online customers to use telephone banking services until the situation
is resolved. The bank is also collaborating with Australian Federal police
in an attempt to track down the person (or persons) responsible for the attack,
and has announced its intention to sue them if they're caught. Revealing
the attack today, St. George staff stressed that customer details were not
at risk: only the ability of customers to access its online banking facilities.
Under the DOS attack, the bank's web site has been flooded with packets of
useless information, slowing it to a crawl and making it impossible for most
users to log on. The bank is the first large Australian corporation affected
by a DOS attack.
Wednesday
30th August 2000
TELSTRA DECLARES RECORD
PROFIT
Hot on the heels of yesterday's
sponsored study that concluded most rural Australians are too stupid, poor
and/or old to take advantage of the Net, Telstra announced today that
it had made a net profit of $3.677 billion - one of the largest in Australia's
corporate history and more than 8 times the amount the Federal Government
received for selling 49% of the company to private shareholders only a few
years ago. Telstra reported that its annual sales had risen by 5.9% last
fiscal year to $18.6 billion and that it had made a pre-tax profit of $5.349
billion. This was largely fed by continued strong growth in mobiles, data
and internet services, intercarrier/wholesale and managed services. In Federal
Parliament today, the Opposition said that the bumper profit proved that
the Government had sold Telstra "too cheaply" and that its desire to sell
the remaining 51% of the carrier was folly. Meanwhile, the National Party
called on the Government to spend the windfall profits on the bush - either
on improving country roads, or on improving telecommunications services in
rural areas. Communications Minister Senator Richard Alston rejected both,
however, saying that the extra money would go into consolidated revenues
and that criticism of a further sell-off of Telstra "had no logic". Senator
Alston said that "high-earning assets always fetch a better price".
Tuesday
29th August 2000
DIGITAL DIVIDE CAUSED BY
MONEY, EDUCATION
According to
a
new study commissioned by Telstra, the root causes of the
digital divide emerging between rural and urban areas in Australia are not
poor connectivity or lack of infrastructure but have much more to do with
money and education. The study - carried out jointly by the University
of Canberra, the Communications Law Centre and the Australian
Council of Social Services - found that individuals earning $84,000 or
more per annum are 3 times more likely to have Net access than those earning
less than $22,000, while those with a degree were 2.3 times more likely to
have Net access than those with only a basic education. The study also found
that households with children older than 10 were almost twice as likely to
have Net access than households with children younger than 10. Telstra said
that the study explained why Internet takeup was so low in some regional
areas with no infrastructure problems, and also why there were no significant
differences between urban and rural areas where income, education levels,
age and numbers of children at home were taken into account.
Monday
28th August 2000
ABC SPENDS $2 MILLION ON
ECOMMERCE ROLES
Less than two months after
rejecting a $67.5 million content supply deal with Telstra, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation's managing director Jonathan Shier announced
today that the ABC would spend
$A2 million creating six new, highly-paid ecommerce positions in an attempt
to commercialise some sectors of the company's operations. The new positions
will include a head of e-commerce on $144,000 and an e-business strategy
manager on $133,000 and will come as additions to the ABC's existing online
staff. Since taking over the ABC in March this year, Mr Shier's management
has seen most of the ABC's proven creative and journalistic talent leave
the corporation. Key executives who formerly ran drama, news, current affairs,
programming, business affairs and television rights have already left the
network, and many more are expected to leave in the near future after most
middle-level executives were forced to reapply for their jobs. Commentators
believe that Mr Shier has embarked on a high-risk strategy, given that few
- if any - major media organisations around the world (and none in Australia)
have been able to turn a profit on their ecommerce ventures to date.
Friday
25th August 2000
33% OF AUSTRALIANS NOW
ONLINE
Almost one third of Australian
households were online in May this year according to a new report by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics
(ABS). The ABS' report "Use of the Internet by Householders, Australia,
May 2000" disclosed that 54% of Australian households now have a computer
and 33% have Internet access. This is up from 47% and 22% a year previously,
indicating that the domestic Internet audience grew by almost 50% over the
previous 12 months. Disturbingly, though, the survey also found strong evidence
of a growing digital divide between rich and poor, city and country. The
ABS report that households with incomes of $50,000+ were twice as likely
to have a home computer and three times as likely to have Internet access
at home than households with incomes less than $50,000. Further, households
in metropolitan areas were more likely to have home computers than households
in rural areas (56% versus 51%), and even more likely to use the Net (37%
versus 26%). The ABS estimate that 6.4 million adults (46% of Australia's
adult population) accessed the Net in the 12 months to May 2000 compared
with 5.5 million adults (40%) a year earlier.
Thursday
24th August 2000
PORN SITES SUED FOR
FRAUD
The US Federal Trade
Commission and New York's Attorney General filed suits today against
the operators of HighSociety.com, Playgirl.Com and dozens of other adult
content sites for allegedly billing consumers for services that were supposedly
offered for free. In what investigators have described as "the biggest scam
ever seen", authorities revealed that the site operators involved in the
suit collected as much as $188 million between 1997 and 1999 - and an
undetermined amount of that was due to outright fraud. Lawyers said that
many consumers who were offered free access to the sites in exchange for
providing credit card details - supposedly to prove that they were of legal
age - were billed regardless; and many others who had never used the sites
at all were also billed. VISA reported that the sites generated "tens of
thousands" of consumer complaints and that the site operators had been thrown
out of the system because of it. Many consumers were charged recurring monthly
membership fees of between $20 and $90 - most under names that had nothing
to do with the sites collecting the fees - and many consumers had no option
but to terminate their credit or debit cards to break the vicious billing
cycle.
Wednesday
23rd August 2000
ECORP LOSES ANOTHER $28
MILLION
Kerry Packer's online trading
venture ecorp reported another
stunning loss today, announcing that it had lost $28.27 million on increased
revenues of $65.4 million in the year to June 30th. This beat its previous
fiscal year's record loss of $24.2 million. Most of the company's revenues
($46.4 million) came from its Ticketek venture. NineMSN - the
company's joint venture with Microsoft and Australia's busiest web site -
reported a loss of $19.6 million, followed by the Australian version of
eBay, which lost $3.4 million. Nonetheless, executives said they were
"pleased" with the result and looked forward to the coming year when they
expect revenues to climb to $97.4 million and losses to drop back to $21.6
million. In keeping with the company's philosophy of partnering with large
foreign corporations, ecorp also announced that their next venture will be
an attempt to open a local version of the US-based Charles Schwab stockbroking
site. ecorp hope to have the new site open by December. Investors were less
pleased with the results, however, marking down the stock by 4c to
$A2.54.
Tuesday
22nd August 2000
NIELSEN: NET HITS CRITICAL
MASS IN USA
According to a new study by
Nielsen/Netratings
(NN), the Internet has now hit critical mass in the USA. NN found that 52%
of the US population (144 million people) had Net access available from their
homes in July this year and 32% (88 million) surfed the Net from home during
the month. This represented a growth in the US market of 35% during the last
year, which NN attribute to continuing falls in hardware and bandwidth costs
and the increasing availability of high-speed networks in that country. NN
also found that US Internet users spent nearly 10 hours a month online, an
increase of 26% over the previous year, and that average page views had almost
doubled from 353 to 709 per month during the year. However, the number of
unique sites viewed by users declined from 12 to 10 - a trend which may indicate
the emergence of a significant barrier for new entrants into the market if
it continues.
Monday
21st August 2000
ONLINE "CERTIFICATION"
LEGALLY VALUELESS
Companies which charge ecommerce
sites large fees to attach a "certification" stamp to their web sites offer
a service that is largely valueless to consumers according to Australian
Communications Minister Senator Richard Alston. Speaking at the launch of
the Customer Service Institute of Australia's ecommerce certification arm
eTick today, Alston said that
a report recently commissioned by Federal Government had found that Australian
law lacks clarity and guidance over whether a certification authority owes
a duty of care to consumers implied under its 'seal of approval'. The report
casts doubt over the relevance of such schemes to Australian consumers, he
said, if Internet certification authorities cannot provide a consumer protection
guarantee with any legal foundation. The current state of the law being what
it is, it was therefore unclear what value - if any - such schemes really
offered consumers. eTick deputy chairperson and world president of the
International Law Association Sir Laurence Street confirmed the findings
of the report by later telling journalists that eTick would concentrate on
auditing suppliers. The company would have no dealings with consumers, he
said, and any problems consumers might have with an organisation displaying
the seal would be solely between the consumer and the business.
Friday
18th August 2000
ADULT SITES DOMINATE PAID
CONTENT
According to a new study by
UK researchers Datamonitor
PLC, adult content now accounts for a staggering 69% of the total
paid online content market, and seems set to do so for the foreseeable future.
Datamonitor estimate that the market for paid online content was worth $US1.4
billion in the USA and Western Europe in 1998, and is set to be worth as
much as $US3.1 billion by 2003. However, they believe that adult content
- 84% of which originates in the USA or is broadcast by US-owned companies
- now holds the lion's share, followed by by games, sports, music, news and
all other forms of paid content services. Datamonitor estimate the the total
market for adult content in 2000 is worth $1,780 million. By comparison,
the total current market for online games is $US150 million; for sports,
$US45 million; for music, $US17 million; and for all other services combined
(eg: news, stock prices etc), around $700 million.
Thursday
17th August 2000
WISHLIST TO SELL COUNTRY
ROAD THROUGH BP
In what may be one of the most
unusual ecommerce moves seen in Australia to date, online gift store
Wishlist announced today
that it had formed an alliance with upmarket clothing retailer Country
Road to sell the company's products - and another with BP so that
customers could pick up their clothing and giftware orders at their local
petrol station. Country Road said that research had shown that its customers
wanted to be able to buy the firm's products online, but added that it would
cost "north of $10 million" to provide the facility. By partnering with Wishlist
for "south of $1 million" and agreeing to split retail profits 50/50 for
a three-year trial period, Country Road hoped to save shareholder capital
and provide better facilities for customers. Meanwhile the BP deal - struck
between Wishlist and BP last month - would provide a local "brick and mortar"
delivery depot for Wishlist in most suburbs. Wishlist said it hoped the latter
partnership would ultimately lead to BP taking an equity stake in the gift
firm. The new Country Road lines are expected to be available in December.
Wednesday
16th August 2000
DOJ WANTS MICROSOFT CASE
FAST-TRACKED
The US
Department of Justice (DOJ) asked
the US Supreme Court today to hear Microsoft's appeal against the decision
to split the company in two, rather than let the matter wind its way through
the Appeals Court first. The DOJ said that delays caused by pushing the matter
to the Appeals Court "could irreparably harm competition in a vital and rapidly
evolving sector of the national economy." The DOJ was opposing Microsoft's
request last month that the case go to the Appeals Court first, saying this
would add an extra year to the process and that Microsoft's arguments against
this are "weak". Microsoft told the Supreme Court last month that its claims
should take the slower route. The company's brief urged the court to avoid
"the onerous task of sifting through a large and complex record and forgoing
the many benefits of intermediate appellate review". The nine Supreme Court
justices are not expected to say until September at the earliest which path
the case will take next. If they grant the DOJ's application, this will be
only the third time in the last 25 years that the appeals process has been
bypassed - though the DOJ pointed out in today's submission that from 1903
until 1974, it was standard for all antitrust appeals to go directly from
the trial court to the US Supreme Court.
Tuesday
15th August 2000
NSW GETS TOUGH ON
CYBER-CRIME
New South Wales Attorney-General
Mr Bob Debus announced today that his Government intends to introduce
tough new laws later this year in an attempt to crack down on cyber crime.
Although the main targets of the new laws will be virus writers and hackers
who break into computer systems, the legislation is also expected to come
down hard on criminals who steal credit card information as well. Under the
proposed new laws, people convicted of spreading malicious viruses via email
could face a maximum jail term of 10 years. And conviction for identity theft
with intent to defraud credit card information could land a perpetrator with
a 5-year jail term. Mr Debus said the new legislation aimed to clarify
definitions relating to computer data and electronic commerce to ensure that
existing offences such as fraud and forgery would apply to computer crimes.
He said that NSW has been working with other Australian states and the Federal
Government to develop a nation-wide approach to computer crime.
Monday
14th August 2000
WOMEN NOW A MAJORITY ON
US NET
According to a new study by
Media Metrix (MM) and
Jupiter Communications, women now account for 50.4% of US Net users
and most go online more often than men. In a study of 55,000 people, MM report
that while the number of web users in the USA grew by 22.4% in the last 12
months, the number of female users grew by 34.9% with particularly strong
growth being recorded amongst girls between the ages of 12 and 17 (up 125%).
MM also found that all women surveyed go online more often than they did
a year ago, except for those in the 18 to 24 age group who spent slightly
less time online than they did the year before. According to the study, women
appear to make better use of their time on the Net than men do as they get
older, tending to employ it more for purely functional reasons such as health
queries, child-care, and holiday or financial planning. The study found that
AOL was the most popular site for women over 18 in the USA last year, followed
by Microsoft and Yahoo!
Friday
11th August 2000
GLOBAL PC OWNERSHIP STILL
RISING
More than 3 in every 10 global
consumers now own a PC, according to a study by
Roper
Starch (RS). Their survey, based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews
with consumers in each of 30 countries (including Australia) is said to be
projectable to 1.39 billion people. RS report that PC ownership is showing
significant increases in developed Asia, with 60% of Taiwanese and 50% of
Japanese now owning computers. This is followed by North America (51%), Germany
(44%) and Western Europe (39%). Significant increases are also occurring
in places as diverse as Saudi Arabia (32%), Latin America (27%) and Turkey
(26%). In addition to PC ownership, Internet use is also increasing world-wide
as well, though RS report that North Americans are still the most likely
to have used the Net in the past 30 days, with 41% going online. Developed
Asia now comes second with 32% accessing the Net in the same timeframe.
Thursday
10th August 2000
TOP 50 ETAILER SERVICE
"AVERAGE": GARTNER
According to a new study by
the
Gartner
Group, the top 50 online retail sites are providing woefully inadequate
customer service to most customers at the present time - and losing substantial
sales because of it. Gartner reported that not one of the Top 50 online retail
sites in the USA that it surveyed for its eTail eService Functionality
Study achieved an "excellent" or even a "good" grading. Instead, 23%
were rated as "average", 73% as "fair" and the remaining 4% as "poor". Gartner
found that customer service on most top etailing sites amounts to little
more than lip service at the present time. Only 10% of surveyed sites allowed
customers to track inquiries through to resolution; only 6% offered a feature
asking the retailer to call the customer; only 24% have instant messaging;
and only 28% will even acknowledge that an e-mail inquiry was received. While
Gartner found that 90% of the sites featured a Frequently Asked Questions
section, they said that the clear message for customers was that if they
wanted real service and action from most etailers, the solution
was to get on the phone.
Wednesday
9th August 2000
AUSTRALIAN FIRMS PLAN
HIGH-SPEED NETWORK
Telstra's ADSL network may
have a lifespan of less than a few years if ambitious plans announced by
Leighton Holdings and Macquarie Bank come to pass. Today both companies announced
their intention to build a national high-speed fibre-optic network connecting
all Australian capital cities by 2003 at a cost of $A850 million, with the
Sydney-Melbourne leg expected to be operational as early as mid-2002 and
links to Adelaide and Brisbane in place 3 months later. The venturers propose
to form a new joint company - NextGen Networks - to build and operate the
fibre optic system, bypassing Telstra's infrastructure completely. NextGen
would provide cost competitive, high quality bandwidth services to domestic
and international telecommunications carriers, ISPs, major corporates and
government they say - the first time this has been available in Australia
from an independent corporation. In Canada, the Canarie national dedicated
data network allows users to obtain Internet access speeds up to 1,000 times
faster than ADSL by separating data traffic from voice calls across fibre-optics
rather than trying to carry high-speed Net traffic across a system essentially
designed for voice. By coincidence, the
Internet Society of Australia
recently called for the introduction of a similar national network in Australia,
saying the country was "falling behind" without it.
Tuesday
8th August 2000
BANNER ADS WORK - AND
INCREASING
Although maligned by many Internet
users, a new study suggests that not only are banner ads an effective form
of advertising, but that numbers are on the way up. US research firm
AdKnowledge
(AK) report that 60% of customers who buy or register on a web site after
clicking on a banner ad do so within 30 minutes of clicking. A further 30%
convert within a week. AK found that portal keyword placements appeared to
be the most effective form of advertising online, while Run of Network (RON)
and Run of Site (ROS) placements showed greater click rate averages on ad
networks and heavy-content sites. As a consequence, AK report that the number
of web sites selling banners rose by 13% over the last year. However, the
CPM (cost per thousand) rate for banners has remained relatively static at
$US34. The online advertising market has grown substantially over the last
4 years, and is expected to continue doing so as the Net becomes steadily
more crowded. Industry-wide average clicks for banners range between 0.5%
and 2.0%.
Monday
7th August 2000
TELSTRA ANNOUNCE ADSL
PRICES
Up to 90% of Australians will
be able to obtain high-speed ADSL Internet connections down their telephone
lines by 2002, Telstra said today
- and subscribers who live in certain parts of the capital cities or Toowoomba,
Bunbury or Launceston will be able to access the service as early as the
end of August. Unveiling its new pricing scheme, Telstra said that most home
users should be able to obtain ADSL for around $80 per month and will be
able to access the Net at either 256kbps or 512kbps. However, subscribers
will also have to pay between $189 and $399 for connection to the system
and the supply of an ADSL modem (depending on the length of the service contract
they take) and $189 per Gb for all downloads over the 250Mb to 500Mb they'll
be allocated free each month. Non-Telstra subscribers will also be charged
a premium of $16.50 per month for using the service. Telstra said that it
hopes to have 1300 exchanges wired for ADSL by 2002, potentially extending
the high-speed service to 90% of Australians who live in capital cities or
major regional centres.
Friday
4th August 2000
EUROPEAN COMMISSION TO
PROBE MICROSOFT
The
European Commission (EC) announced
today that it has opened a formal antitrust case against
Microsoft following complaints
from Sun Microsystems that the company has violated European antitrust rules.
Sun alleged in 1998 that Microsoft was using discriminatory licensing practices
to leverage itself to a dominant position in the European server market by
refusing to provide essential information about Windows so other competitors
could provide interoperability. While Microsoft have repeatedly denied the
claims as "sniping" and an attempt by Sun and others to gain access to its
"trade secrets", the EC decided on the action after a thorough 2-year
investigation. "The Commission believes that Microsoft gave (operating system)
information only on a partial and discriminatory basis to some of its
competitors," the EC said in a statement. "It refused to supply interface
information to competitors like Sun Microsystems. Without interoperating
software - and as a result of the overwhelming Microsoft dominance in the
computer software market - computers running on the Windows operating systems
would be obliged to use Windows server software if they wanted to achieve
full interoperability."
Thursday
3rd August 2000
GST PUSHES AUSTRALIANS
ONLINE
According to a new study by
AC Nielsen (ACN) and
Netratings, the introduction of the GST has helped push more Australians
online. ACN reported today that more than 3.9 million Australians surfed
the Net from home in June, up from 2.9 million just three months earlier.
However, while the number of users surged by 30%, the number of user sessions
decreased - from 14 per month in March to 11 per month in June. The total
number of unique sites being visited also dropped (from 17 to 15). The average
user spent 6.5 hours online during the month, ACN said, and the most popular
time for Australians to surf the Net seemed to be 8pm on a Sunday night.
In addition, Australian men still appear to access the Net slightly more
than women (53% vs 47%). ACN speculate that the reason for decline in time
spent online and number of sites visited are that as Australian Internet
users become progressively more "Net-savvy", they're beginning to fine-tune
their surfing behaviour by visiting less sites more often rather than using
the web to explore, mirroring a trend already observed in the USA. As expected,
Government sites drew the most traffic in June, with the Australian Tax Office's
site recording more than 187,000 visitors.
Wednesday
2nd August 2000
AUSTRALIAN MOBILES GET
RADIATION WARNING TOO
Less
than a month after the US Cellular Telecommunications Industry
Association announced that it would voluntarily place plain-English radiation
ratings on mobile phones sold in the USA, the
Australian Communications
Authority (ACA) announced today that similar ratings will soon appear
on mobile phones sold in Australia. According to the ACA, the move has been
backed by the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and
is designed as a response to growing consumer concerns about the health effects
of mobile phone use. Although the final details about what will appear on
mobile phone packaging are yet to be determined an the system will be voluntary,
it seems likely that mobiles will carry a measure known as the specific
absorption rate, along with an explanation of what this means to a phone
user. There is currently no international standard on the absorption rate
(nor any knowledge about what constitutes a safe long-term level of exposure),
but the ACA believe this should be set within a few months. A date on when
the packaging requirements will be in place is also yet to be determined,
although another meeting between the ACA and the AMTA later this month is
expected to hammer out that issue as well.
Tuesday
1st August 2000
AUSTRALIAN NET ZOOMS
AHEAD
There are now at least 65,000
Australian web sites on the Internet, according to our monthly
Australian Internet Growth
Index (AIGI). This represents a 1200% increase over the estimated
5,500 sites that existed in January 1996 and indicates that there's now around
one genuine website for every three domains registered by Internet Names
Australia, the country's official domain registry. The AIGI, which has been
attempting to estimate the number of live Australian sites on the Net since
1996 (as opposed to the number of registered domains) recorded a major surge
this month as the engines we poll to construct it carried out periodic spidering
and database rebuilding. The August 1st figures (with July 1st figures in
brackets) are as follows:
Australian
Internet Growth Index July 2000
(Figures Show Estimated Live Sites) |
-
Brisbane - 5,397
(4,236)
-
Sydney - 20,986
(16,542)
-
Melbourne - 13,092
(10,615)
-
Adelaide - 6,150
(4,568)
|
-
Perth - 5,852
(4,501)
-
Hobart - 2,394
(2,174)
-
Canberra - 5,896
(4,622)
-
Darwin* - 5,472
(4,875)
|
NB: The Darwin figure includes
rural Australian sites |
|
During July 2000 Australian
Cybermalls hosted 62,445 visitors, a slight rise on June's 62,005.
Our visitors viewed 210,671 page displays from our servers, which in turn
consumed 9.11Gb of bandwidth. Our July 2000 traffic summary
can be viewed
here.
|
