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IP: Japan domain cartel? Japanese impose barriers on Internet
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 13:57:27 -0500
http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/top/080144.htm Japanese impose barriers on Internet usage BY MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER Mercury News Washington Bureau TOKYO -- The Internet, that agile new technology that offers instant access to global commerce and communication, supposedly flouts political boundaries. Just point and click, proponents say, and the technology of the ``virtual world'' can easily defy the trade barriers that inhibit conventional commerce. Not so in Japan, as entrepreneurs like David Shepherd are learning. Tangent Computing Ltd., Shepherd's software distribution company, was bounced off the World Wide Web in late July by Japanese authorities after he switched to a U.S.-based Internet service to host his company's e-mail accounts. It seems that a group of Japanese-based Internet providers, operating with the approval of the government, controls who gets to play -- and how much they pay -- to get access to the World Wide Web in Japan. ``Basically, we were shut down for not using a Japanese Internet provider,'' said Shepherd, a Canadian, who does 90 percent of his software distribution business through the Net. ...snip... Dozens of entrepreneurs such as Israeli businessman Todd Walzer have found they could not use their Internet addresses in Japan -- known in Internet parlance as a ``domain names'' -- unless they also used a Japanese Internet service provider. Japanese firms, however, are usually slower and far more expensive than overseas providers, foreign businessmen say. ...snip... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Geoff_Goodfellow () iconia com, s.r.o. * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558 Vsehrdova 2, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic * fax +420 2 5732 0623 "Success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
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