http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34937,00.html UK Wants Tighter E-Trading Laws by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 3:00 a.m. 14.Mar.2000 PST FAIRFAX, Virginia -- It's not that Phillip Thorpe hates the Internet, not exactly. But he sure wishes the problems it causes him would vanish as quickly as Bill Bradley's presidential ambitions. Thorpe has one of the most difficult jobs anyone can hold nowadays: He's a regulator. And not just any regulator, but the head of the British agency responsible for overseeing the financial services and securities industries. In the U.K., London-based Financial Services Authority can shut down any unacceptable Web site that doesn't follow British law, but the agency's reach is limited. Thorpe is concerned that British subjects can connect to any Web site anywhere in the world to deposit money or spend their cash on risky -- though perhaps profitable, and probably unregulated - ventures. There's precious little Thorpe or his FSA cohorts can do about it. ... Thorpe said a third possibility would be to devise a new Web address for approved finance and investment sites that would look like finance://www.bankname.com/. He said it would be a "specific kind of URL for regulated financial entities, though we know there are people we have to ask about that." ... http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34916,00.html AOL Envy by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 3:00 a.m. 14.Mar.2000 PST FAIRFAX, Virginia -- Charles Zhang wants to be China's equivalent of Steve Case. The 35-year-old entrepreneur envisions his company's portal, sohu.com, becoming as synonymous with the Internet in the world's most populous country as America Online is in the world's most wired country. "I've always admired Steve Case," said Zhang, an MIT graduate who lives in Bejing. "Through all these years, when AOL is up and down and people predict AOL is going to fail, AOL is now king of the hill." ... For one thing, the Chinese government isn't exactly known for its love of the Internet and Western influences like erotica -- or anything critical of Beijing. ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
