The International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on the Dot Com Archive, an archive at the University of Maryland documenting “what did and didn't work during the flurry of business activity around the new technology called the Internet.”
Yahoo!Tech reports that “fewer young Americans have Internet access than their peers in the Czech Republic, Canada, Macao and Britain, a survey of 13 countries around the world showed. Among 12 to 14 year olds, 100 percent of British youth use the Internet, followed by Israel at 98 percent, the Czech Republic and Macao and 96 percent and Canada at 95 percent, according to the World Internet report by the Center for the Digital Future. By contrast, only 88 percent of Americans of the same age had access, trailed by Hungary and Singapore, where more than seven in 10 young people use the Internet.”
According to a different Yahoo!Tech article, “Facebook has a won $873 million judgment against a Canadian man who bombarded the popular online hangout with sexually explicit ‘spam’ messages. The victory, sealed with a judge's order issued last Friday, probably won't yield a windfall for privately held Facebook Inc., whose revenue this year is expected to range between $250 million to $300 million. Court records indicate the alleged spammer, Adam Guerbuez of Montreal, has been difficult to find since Facebook sued him four months ago. But Facebook is hoping the size of the judgment will scare off other spammers who might be tempted to target the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company's audience of more than 120 million users.”
The Register writes that British Chancellor of the Exchequer “Alistair Darling's much-leaked cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent has been welcomed by the small business community – although there are worries about how it will be implemented. Darling is expected to unveil the plan this afternoon in a pre-budget statement, along with a raft of other measures to help individuals and businesses weather the recession that practically everyone accepts [the UK is] now in. Support for small business is expected to be at the heart of the program.”
NetworkWorld reveals that “[t]he criminal market online for buying and selling stolen credit cards, pirated software and information about financial accounts is thriving, according to a report published Monday by Symantec. The ‘Underground Economy’ report contains a snapshot of online criminal activity observed from July 2007 to June 2008 by a Symantec team monitoring activities in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Web-based forums where stolen goods are advertised. Symantec estimates the total value of the goods advertised on what it calls ‘underground servers’ was about $276 million, with credit-card information accounting for 59% of the total.”