| REVIEWS
Cruising
Cyberspace
Web
Site Pick Of The Month
By Pam Wegmann
Electronic commerce
is the latest frontier in business, but like the frontiers of old, the
rules and the laws of this new territory have yet to be formalized, much
less finalized. The government of the United States realizes that like
the old days of the wilderness, it is an arena fraught with both opportunity
and peril. Hence, it is trying to address this new challenge head on and
is publishing its efforts and policies at
http://www.ecomerce.gov
This is the home
site of the federal government’s e-commerce information store. It is maintained
by the Secretariat for Electronic Commerce under the U.S. Department of
Commerce. The site is clean and uncluttered, and due to appropriate use
of graphics, loads quickly. The links are all valuable and they all worked.
The site is also mapped out in a very logical manner.
The top link is to
information on the first ever conference to be held to explore the impact
of a digital economy. The conference will attempt to measure the impact
of the Internet and the World Wide Web on the U.S. economy and society.
The conference was scheduled as the result of a November 1998 presidential
directive to analyze the economic implications of e-commerce. It will focus
on the state of research on the digital economy and what will be needed
to monitor future development. In case you are interested in attending,
you can check out the schedule and register online at this page.
Also at this link
are links to related reports and documents such as The Emerging Digital
Economy and various analyses and case studies.
Clicking on Important
U.S. Documents on Electronic Commerce Policy contains an interesting discussion
draft on establishing a system to manage domain names, quite a hot topic
in Internet legal and e-commerce circles.
The Framework for
Global Electronic Commerce link outlines principals and issues such as
government involvement in e-commerce versus private sector leadership.
Issues such as privacy, security, and customs and taxation are discussed.
The link labeled
U.S. Government Sites on Electronic Commerce Policy brings together all
the documents issued on this topic by various parts of our federal government
including the White House, Congress, the Department of Commerce, the Department
of Justice, the Treasury
Department, the
Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and, the
World Trade Organization.
Bringing in
the true implication of e-commerce, the link to the International Site
is a collection of selected links to international information sources
on electronic commerce and Internet policies, connection to information
from other countries, and international organizations.
Lastly, there’s a
button called Examples of E-Commerce. This is a collection of links to
case studies, to emmerce, a Webzine (Internet lingo for a Web based magazine),
and to Commerce.Net, a consortium of companies using, promoting and building
electronic commerce solutions on the Internet.
It behooves any company
which intends now or in the future to conduct business over the Internet
to have a good understanding of this new form of commerce and its ramifications.
To many business executives, e-commerce may at this moment, seem foreign
as a means of conducting business, but how many people in the late 1800’s
considered Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone as a way to buy their clothes
or have Friday night’s dinner delivered?
Knowledge is Power!
Happy Cruising!
June, 1999
Questions/Comments
can be sent to pam@info-matters.com
or faxed to 504.738.0016. You can also reach Ms. Wegmann at 504.738.0070.
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