The first is nice, given the vulnerability of international services to pressure from one country. The second could be a problem. The third shows, like the ITAR, that sometimes one government department can have a lot more sense than the others. Possibly Commerce is benefiting from private sector contacts? -Allen From: Educom <educom@elanor.oit.unc.edu> ***************************************************************** Edupage, 18 January 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. ***************************************************************** EXODUS FROM COMMERCIAL SERVICES? Commercial online services are having a difficult time keeping customers and differentiating themselves, as more savvy computer users switch over to small Internet access providers. "Most everything I find on the online services, I can find using an Internet service provider," says one customer who's made the switch. "For me, the need for an online service is diminishing." "AOL is like the Internet on training wheels," says another, who feels he's "graduated." In tandem with subscriber defection is the problem of content providers who increasingly are setting up their own shops on the Web, bypassing the commercial services altogether. The popularity of the Web "turns the model of the online services industry upside down," says Scott Kurnit, the former No. 2 executive at Prodigy, who's now running an Internet service for MCI and News Corp. While the number of commercial service subscribers has grown to about 12.5 million over the past decade (doubling in the past year), the number of World Wide Web users increased eight-fold, to eight-million, in just the past year, according to International Data Corp. (Wall Street Journal 18 Jan 96 A6) ONE IS ENOUGH The number of people subscribing to more than one online service has dropped significantly since 1991 when almost a third of online users carried multiple subscriptions. Now, 97% report they can do everything they need to using a single service. (Business Week 22 Jan 96 p8) [...] CROSS-BORDER CULTURE WAR LOOMS Canada's federal regulator is in Washington trying to persuade a skeptical U.S. government that Canadian efforts to black out American TV signals that contravene standards on violence and nudity do not violate NAFTA. U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor has warned Canadian Trade Minister Roy MacLaren that the U.S. government, while supporting the development of a V-chip to allow parental control, will react negatively if Ottawa takes wholesale action to block American programming from distribution through Canadian cable systems. (Toronto Financial Post 18 Jan 96 p5) Meanwhile, Power DirecTV says the explosive growth of satellite TV piracy and the flood of American direct-to-home dishes into Canada is threatening to wipe out Canadian broadcasting. The company urged the Canadian government to create rules that aid new Canadian DTH companies and to enforce laws that prohibit the import of American dishes into Canada. (Toronto Star 17 Jan 96 B3) [...] *************************************************************** [...] EDUPAGE is what you've just finished reading. (Please note that it's "Edupage" and not "EduPage.") To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage Jane Austen (assuming that your name is Jane Austen; if it's not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe edupage. (Subscription problems? Send mail to educom@educom.unc.edu.) [...] ARCHIVES & TRANSLATIONS. For archive copies of Edupage or Update, ftp or gopher to educom.edu or see URL: < http://www.educom.edu/>. For the French edition of Edupage, send mail to edupage-fr@ijs.com with the subject "subscribe"; or see < http://www.ijs.com >. For the German edition, genugt eine E-Mail an: infomat@stern.de mit der Betreff- oder Textzeile "STERN Online Edupage". For the Hebrew edition, send mail to listserv@kinetica.co.il containing : SUBSCRIBE Leketnet-Word6 <name> or see < http://www.kinetica.co.il/newsletters/leketnet/ >. For the Hungarian edition, send mail to: send mail to subs.edupage@hungary.com. For the Italian edition : < http://dbweb.agora.stm.it/webforum/infotech > or send mail to: b.parrella@agora.stm.it. for info. For the Portuguese edition, contact edunews@nc-rj.rnp.br with the message SUB EDUPAGE-P Seu Primeiro Nome Seu Sobrenome. For the Spanish edition, send mail edunews@nc-rj.rnp.br with the message SUB EDUPAGE-E Su Primer Nombre, Su Apellido.