NewsScan Daily, 4 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 4 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Software Execs Blast Industry for Ignoring Customer Relations
        States Seek Sales Tax Revenue for Online Purchases
        Senators Seek to Put Children's Data Off Limits
        Smartcards Weren't So Smart After All, Says Target
        Virus Writers Squabble Online

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Maggie Kuhn

SOFTWARE EXECS BLAST INDUSTRY FOR IGNORING CUSTOMER RELATIONS
      Top executives from four software companies criticized their 
industry's pricing models and apparent indifference toward nurturing 
customer relationships. "I believe the traditional enterprise software 
model is dying," Christopher Lochhead, chief marketing officer of Mercury 
Interactive, told attendees of the Sand Hill Group's Software 2004 
conference. He noted that the current perpetual license model enables 
software makers to collect big upfront fees, plus smaller, ongoing payments 
for maintenance, which entitle customers to technical support and upgrades. 
The result is that a majority of big software companies put their energy 
into landing the big corporate licensing deals while neglecting the 
customers they already have. Lochhead advocates switching over to a 
subscription-based licensing model, in which customers make repeat payments 
to renew their right to use the software because it provides a 
"carrot-and-stick" mechanism that keeps suppliers focused on retaining 
customers at renewal time. Another approach used at Agile Software involves 
a series of payments at various points along the way, including when the 
program is delivered, when the customer switches on the system, and when 
certain promised results are achieved. (CNet News.com 3 Mar 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5169536.html

STATES SEEK SALES TAX REVENUE FOR ONLINE PURCHASES
      Income tax forms in 20 states are sporting a new feature -- a line 
where taxpayers are supposed to declare any tax owed on out-of-state 
purchases. Although technically citizens have owed taxes on such purchases 
long before the Internet (on mail order purchases, for instance), "Nobody 
-- very few -- ever followed that rule," says a Buffalo, NY CPA. But as 
states become increasingly desperate to find new revenues, the recent 
increase in e-commerce sales has "really shined a spotlight on it and 
increased the urgency," says Harley Duncan, executive director of the 
Federation of Tax Administrators. The new tax line forces taxpayers to 
confront their liability, say New York state officials, who estimate their 
state loses more than $1 billion in sales tax revenues from out-of-state 
purchases. But a Maine official says her state's 25-year experiment in 
charging sales tax on such items has not proven very successful. "It's 
pretty much of an honor system in that it's very difficult to go back and 
audit someone's checkbook or credit card statements." One New York lawmaker 
has already introduced a bill to drop the whole thing: "We're going to make 
tax evaders out of law-abiding citizens and policemen out of tax preparers 
and accountants," says Assemblyman Ronald Tocci. "(Who) keeps tabs of what 
they buy on vacation in the Bahamas or Canada? Or anyplace? It's crazy. 
It's insane." (AP/Siliconvalley.com 3 Mar 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8097484.htm

SENATORS SEEK TO PUT CHILDREN'S DATA OFF LIMITS
      U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) have 
introduced the Children's Listbroker Privacy Act, which would limit the 
sale of personal data on children under 16 without their parents' consent. 
The bill is part of a larger package of legislation aimed at helping 
parents fight back against a deluge of commercial messages aimed at their 
children. Currently companies spend about $12 billion annually on marketing 
to children, often using lists from brokers like the Student Marketing 
Group that reveal the child's name, address, age, ethnicity, religious 
affiliation, sports activities, hobbies and family income level. "Many 
large companies see childhood as a commercial free-fire zone. But some 
things shouldn't be for sale, and our children's personal information is 
one of them," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. 
(Wired.com 4 Mar 2004)
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62522,00.html

SMARTCARDS WEREN'T SO SMART AFTER ALL, SAYS TARGET
      Target is phasing out the computer chips embedded in its branded Visa 
cards less than three years after they were first introduced, citing 
"limited use" by shoppers. The technology allowed cardholders to download 
coupons from the Internet or in-store kiosks in order to receive discounts 
on merchandise, but few customers took advantage of the feature. Only 3.5% 
of Americans 18 years or older said they had used a smart payment card like 
Target's, according to a survey conducted by Financial Insights in March 
2004. John Gould, director of consumer lending and bank cards at 
TowerGroup, says Target had been on the right track with its smartcard 
rollout and perhaps was overhasty in its decision to curtail the program. 
"I don't think they gave it time to mature," he says. (Reuters 3 Mar 2004)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JPT5K1DAV2VEACRBAEKSFEY?type=technologyNews&storyID=4491160&section=news

VIRUS WRITERS SQUABBLE ONLINE
      The writers of Internet plagues MyDoom, Bagle and Netsky have 
ratcheted up their competition, embedding insults and threats against each 
other in the coding of the latest versions of their computer bugs. For 
example, "MyDoom.f is a thief of our idea!" and "Bagle -- you are a 
looser!" both appear in the code of the latest Netsky worm [no one ever 
said worm writers were literate!]. Ken Dunham, director of malicious code 
at iDefense, says the spat appears to exemplify the rivalry between the 
authors of MyDoom and Bagle, both of which attempt to take control of 
infected computers, while the Netsky worm attempts to deactivate the other 
two. "There's a huge pool of computers that are always infected," says 
Dunham, who estimates that number at somewhere in the low hundreds of 
thousands. Virus writers "want to make sure they have complete control of 
those computers." Meanwhile, the new versions just keep on coming -- 
there've been 11 versions of Bagle, seven of MyDoom and six of Netsky, 
which appeared only last month. "We are just seeing variation after 
variation," says a VP of one antivirus company. (Washington Post 4 Mar 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28548-2004Mar3.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am." (Bernard 
Baruch)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MAGGIE KUHN
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the social activist Margaret "Maggie" 
Eliza Kuhn (1905-1995), who was a pioneer leader in the battle against 
"ageism," which she defined as "the segregation, stereotyping, and 
stigmatizing of people on the basis of age."
      Kuhn made the treatment of older Americans her special cause when she 
was involuntarily eased into retirement at age 65. Unhappy about being 
mandated to retire at so arbitrary an age, she created a coalition group 
called Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change, whose 
agenda included opposing the depiction in the media of older Americans as 
senile and helpless; demanding legislation for providing seniors with 
improved medical care and better nutrition; and needed changes in Social 
Security system. The group received a positive response from the public, 
and later the name was changed to the Gray Panthers, prompted no doubt by 
the parallel success of the Black Panther movement. The Gray Panthers 
expanded their causes to include a variety of social and economic needs of 
Americans of every age group. In 1973, they merged with Ralph Nader's 
Retired Professional Action Group. They also joined with other groups to 
form the National Coalition for Nursing Home Reform.
      Kuhn was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1905. Her birth name was 
Margaret Eliza but she always insisted on being called "Maggie." In 1926 
she graduated from Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland and went to 
work for the YWCA. In 1930, she became head of the YWCA's Professional 
Department of business girls in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. 
Later, during World War II, she became a program coordinator and editor for 
the YWCA's USO division. After the YWCA's USO division was phased out in 
1948, she became program coordinator for the General Alliance for Unitarian 
and Other Liberal Christian Women in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1950, she 
returned to Philadelphia to work assistant secretary of the Social 
Education and Action Department at the Presbyterian Church's national 
headquarters. In the course of this assignment and others in the 
Presbyterian Church, Kuhn had first hand experience with the problems of 
the elderly, as well as other social issues such as racism and poverty. Her 
concern for the elderly was sharpened by her attendance as a Church 
observer at the 1961 White House Conference on Aging.
      Before Kuhn died in 1995 she wrote "The Life and Times of Maggie 
Kuhn," her memoir of her long and venturesome life. Perhaps the best 
testimonial to her life is what she said about making a change in the 
world: "Go to the people at the top. Don't moan and groan with like-minded 
souls. Don't write letters or place a few phone calls and then sit back and 
wait. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind-even if your 
voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what 
you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants."

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0664241468/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "Maggie Kuhn on Ageing" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We 
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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