Australian Cybermalls News

The widely-known "millennium problem" which may cause many computers to crash on January 1st, 2001 could also occur on September 9th, 1999 according to British experts. Some mainframes running COBOL could misinterpret 9.9.99 and the consequences would be the same as the 1.1.2001 problem, though nowhere near as widespread. UK Technology Minister John Battle warned British companies last week that if they did not begin addressing both issues soon they could pay a "very high price" and some may even be forced out of business. The Millennium Bug has arisen because many software programs developed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s stored the year as a two-digit number rather than a 4-digit number. As a result, they will regard January 1st 2001 as January 1st, 1900 - a flaw that could potentially bring payroll, billing, stock control and banking systems to a complete halt throughout the world.

The Internet Industry Association of Australia (INTIAA) and the Australian Internet Association (AIA) have announced plans to merge and form a new peak national organisation - the Australian Internet Council - in order to provide better representation for the Internet industry and create a stronger political voice in the corridors of power. The new body aims to broaden representation from ISPs (which both organisations currently represent) to all facets of the industry, and expects to be operational in as little as six weeks. While existing State associations will remain as separate entities under current arrangements, the new peak body proposes to employ a full-time executive director in Canberra. It will also help formulate a common code of practice and address political, industry, consumer and regulatory concerns about the Internet in a common way.

The collapse of the overcrowded Australian computer publications market - which has seen several well-known titles disappear off newsstands over the last few months - continued with today's closure today of Your Computer magazine, one of the country's oldest titles for novice computer users. The closure of the magazine was very sudden and many advertisers only found out when they attempted to submit copy for the September issue. Your Computer had been in print for close to a decade and was seen as one of Australia's more stable titles, catering to a niche demographic and riding the boom that followed the widespread adoption of PCs in Australian offices and homes ever since the mid-1980s.

The hard drive on the main machine used to upload material to Australian Cybermalls' server crashed on Tuesday evening, July 22nd. Although this had no direct effect on our site, normal update operations weren't able to be restored until the weekend of July 26th-27th. This affected daily updates to our News section, the daily Dr Fun cartoon, a scheduled bi-weekly update to The Free Graphics Store, a new quarterly update for The Magazine Publishing Company, and changes to our site index and front page. We apologise to anyone who was inconvenienced by this unexpected hardware failure. All normal and scheduled updates will resume as quickly as possible over the next week.

Microsoft have lodged a new record for quarterly performance, earning a hefty $US1.05 billion profit from $US3.18 billion in sales for the period March-June 1997. According to Wall Street data, the company made an average profit margin of 100% on its sales during the quarter, compared to 72% a year earlier. Overall, the company made $US11.36 billion in sales during 1996/97 and generated a profit of $US3.44 billion. However, Microsoft has cautioned that growth will slow down over the coming year and that it has no new blockbuster releases like Windows95 or Office97 planned during the coming 12 months.

The Internet Society of Australia and the Australian Computer Society have both called on the Government to reject the recommendations of a Senate select committee report which proposed last month that Australian ISPs introduce a code of conduct to control content on their sites, with heavy penalties for anyone breaching it. According to both groups, the report likens ISPs to broadcasters rather than message carriers. If its recommendations are implemented, they say, the Government will use ISPs to regulate Internet content, making them defacto censors over what can (and cannot) be broadcast on Australian sites.

The bulk of a secret report on encryption that the Australian Federal Government tried to suppress has been published on the Internet by Electronic Frontiers Australia, who obtained a copy of it under the Freedom Of Information Act. EFA officials claim that they posted the report because they were concerned that the Government would attempt to formulate an encryption policy without public debate. The report (from which 25 paragraphs have been deleted) recommends that the Government make "minor" legislative changes to telecommunications and search laws and that it take "other actions". However, the report rejects current US proposals for tackling the encryption issue, which require that decoding keys be stored with the Government.

Adelaide University's Camtech claims to have a developed a secure electronic commerce system for less than $200,000 which is the equal of competing SET 1.0 systems developed by VISA, Mastercard, Microsoft and IBM. According to the company, its Secure Online Sales (SOS) product provides the world's first real-time secure validation system to allow safe credit card purchases over the Internet. Merchants would be required to pay Camtech $3500 to use the system plus a small percentage of all sales. Camtech hope to market SOS through Australian ISPs, then branch into the Asian market. week.

An Internet credit card scam which has promised consumers access to a low-interest, no-questions-asked $4,000 VISA cards for payment of a $US100 fee is on the brink of collapse and under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The scheme, which was promoted by the Canadian-based Global Interactive Investments Club through spam emails since early March has so far netted approximately 40,000 people and earned more than $4 million for GIIC. However, the company promised to issue the cards after a maximum 12-week waiting period and the RCMP is poised to swoop on the operation as soon as the time period expires - which will occur this week.

An Australian company plans to offer free local phone calls in Australia from early next year. The phone calls would be interrupted by short 10-second advertisements every three minutes which would make them unsuitable for Internet dial-ups. However the promoters - Whitfield Investments - believe that consumers will leap at the chance to obtain free local calls and that advertisers will be equally keen to reach a captive audience. Advertisements will be broadcast using sophisticated software which will be sensitive to both the time of day and the geographic location of the caller, and callers at each end would hear different advertisements. The company plans to launch its FreePhone service in Sydney and Melbourne early next year, with other capital cities following later. The service would not be available for mobile, STD or ISD calls.

In a sign of how the Internet is increasingly moving into Australia's corporate mainstream, Australia's international air carrier QANTAS launched a revamped site today which - amongst many other things - allows visitors to check their frequent flyer points online, look up aircraft arrival and departure times and download an itinerary planner. The move has upped the stakes on rival carrier Ansett and shows that major corporations in Australia are starting to build permanent interactive online homes on the Net, rather than the static billboards that have been the dominant format to date. The new QANTAS site - which replaces the billboard format the airline had adopted for its first year online - was designed by advertising agency M&C Saatchi Direct and is mirrored in the USA.

While Australian banks dither about forming a consortium to facilitate the introduction of SET 1.0 secure commerce systems on the Internet, Singaporean banks have already done so and will be launching a system of secure Internet shopping within the next month. In doing so, Singapore has become the first country in South East Asia to embrace the new SET 1.0 standard announced last month by VISA and Mastercard. SET protects consumers' credit card data when they make purchases on the Net and affords merchants instant verification of online transactions. In Australia, the Commonwealth Bank opened preliminary discussions on the system with US SET provider GTElate last month but has - so far - yet to bite the bullet.

Moves by Sun Microsystems to turn Java into an ISO programming language have received a temporary setback, with 13 member countries of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) including Australia rejecting the company's initial proposal to turn the language into an open standard. More than 30 countries need to vote on the matter by July 14th. However, all rejections so far been given as "No - with comments" rather than an outright "No". This means that Sun is welcome to respond to ISO concerns and resubmit its application at a future time. If successful, the adoption of Java as an ISO language would pose a major threat to Microsoft, who've been actively opposed to it and have been lobbying hard against it. Java's open nature poses a critical threat to the company's dominance of the PC software market and Microsoft have been trying to persuade developers to use the company's own proprietary brand of Java while attempting to thwart Sun's bid for most of the year.

Netscape has released its official version 4.0 product with a patch for the last-minute security flaw uncovered a few weeks ago by a European hacker. Netscape Communicator 4.1 is being offered in two versions - a basic 7.8Mb release that combines the browser, email, newsgroup reader and the WYSIWYG page editing capabilities of Netscape Navigator Gold, and a 15Mb professional version that adds several groupware features to the base product for use on intranets. The new browser interface in the basic version is substantially similar to Navigator 3.0 and the browser is available in multiple platform versions from download sites world-wide.

The number of monthly Australian internet media has contracted from three to two following the purchase of Internet Australasia by long-time rival Internet.Au. Announcing the acquisition in the current August 1997 issue, Internet.Au said that the move would strengthen its position against Cyber Publications' rival Australian Net Guide, which has been making strong headway in the market since its launch 12 months ago. Internet.Au has merged some of the content of Internet Australasia, the country's first Internet monthly, and increased its cover price by $1 following the acquisition.

Reacting to pressure from businesses concerned about heavy-handed Government regulation, US President Bill Clinton promised to make the Internet a global "free trade zone" yesterday. Speaking to an East Room reception for industry executives at the White House, Clinton said that at present electronic commerce is the "Wild West" of the global economy, but he endorsed a hands-off approach to regulating transactions on the Net, saying that the government should make every effort not to stand in the way. Clinton also promised to introduce new legislation regarding copyright, patent and privacy issues in the next twelve months to set minimum boundaries for proper Internet commercial conduct. However, Clinton gave no indication that the US Government would move its current position on the restricted sale of encryption devices.

Less than 10 days after purchasing Australia's oldest ISP Pegasus, Microplex has added AUSNet Services to its portfolio as part of the company's avowed strategy to target the business, government and home markets. All three ISPs' networks will be combined as part of the buyout but each will retain separate names and identities for the present time. Microplex has also indicated that it has had buy-out discussions with other ISPs but has no plans for further acquisitions in the immediate future. Meanwhile, a mooted buy-out of troubled national ISP Access One by Ozemail has collapsed. Access One - which lost close to $5.5 million is the previous half-year - is currently owned by Solution 6.

After a flat period in May, Australian Internet sites increased by around 8% during June 1997 according to our monthly Australian Internet Growth Index, which has been continuously measuring the number of Australian Internet sites for the last 17 months. The growth spurt follows indifferent performance during the previous quarter. The July 1st figures (with June 1st figures in brackets) are:

Australian Internet Growth Index June 1997
(Figures Show Estimated Sites)

Brisbane - 3,340 (3,179)
Sydney - 10,200 (9,390)
Melbourne - 7,958 (7,350)
Adelaide - 3,131 (2,918)

Perth - 3,119 (2,911)
Hobart - 1,259 (1,202)
Canberra - 2,920 (2,600)
Darwin - 2,566 (2,307)

During June Australian Cybermalls displayed 44,726 storefronts, registering a slight fall against May 1997 when we displayed 48,631 storefronts. Our June figures equated to an average of 1,491 visitors per day. During the month several of our most popular sites - like a large number of our regular visitors from the northern hemisphere - took a much-needed holiday break. For comparison, 12 months ago (in June 1996) we displayed 6,500 storefronts.