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NONE OF YOUR E-BIZ How much do the dotcoms know about you? How much should they know? Last week Congress opened hearings on an FTC proposal that would put limits on when and how e-commerce websites can collect information about their customers-- where they're logging on from, for example--and what the sites can do with such data. Right now there aren't any limits at all, and the FTC is concerned that Internet stores are abusing consumers' trust. Needless to say, the e-tailers aren't buying. They say the industry can police itself, and regulations...
Another literary source could have been the Warner Bros. film library. Time Warner officials were outraged that Disney had tried to wring commercial advantage out of the big merger, using the FTC and FCC examination of the deal as air cover for an opportunity to enhance Disney's bottom line. They sounded like Claude Rains in Casablanca, who would have been "Shocked! Shocked!" that one communications conglomerate would dare to profit at the expense of another...
...Britney Spears' warblings will now be $2 to $5 cheaper at a music store near you. The music biz's Big Five - Sony, Bertelsmann, EMI, Universal and Time Warner (corporate cousin to this web site) - which control 85 percent of the $15 billion CD market, settled with the FTC Wednesday on charges that they've been leaning for years on music retailers to fix CD prices by threatening to withhold promotional budgets from stores that don't adhere to a so-called "minimum advertised price" (MAP). The three-year price-fixing binge, according to FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky, cost consumers...
...aggressive application of antitrust law in Washington," says TIME legal correspondent Adam Cohen. "This case, just like Microsoft, probably wouldn't have been brought five years ago." And with Time Warner not only looking to merge its music division with that of EMI but also hoping the FTC will approve its swallowing by AOL, a no-fuss settlement is an excellent way to signal to the trustbusters that it's a gentle giant. "In this climate, it doesn't want to look like it's using its size or connections unfairly," says Cohen. Click here to forward this story...
...order to get around the government's objections, the firms announced Wednesday that they'd reached an agreement to sell Arco's Alaska holdings to Phillips Petroleum for about $6 billion. The court, in turn, was expected to suspend court hearings indefinitely, with the FTC vowing to sit back down with the firms and make a good-faith effort to hammer out a deal. Of course, this is all still cold comfort to drivers on the West Coast who, for a different reason - OPEC production controls - are currently paying nearly $2 per gallon...