IP: IPI News

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "Tim Smith" <tim () stencilgroup com>
> To: "Dave Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
>
> FYI, CNN's take on the IPI
>
> Latest Internet Policy Group Sprouts In Washington
> April 12, 1999: 4:52 p.m. ET
> By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes
> http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/newsbytes/129140.html
>
>  WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A. (NB) -- As the Internet becomes more popular in the
> American public, it tends to gather bills and lobby groups like barnacles.
> The latest of these, the Internet Policy Institute (IPI), was announced
> today.
> The IPI's working group is chaired by Kimberly Jenkins, the chairman and
> founder of Highway 1, a group known to the political technology followers in
> Washington as the non-profit corporation that casts itself as a "nonpartisan
> resource on information technologies" for federal, state and local
> government.
> Jenkins told Newsbytes the group has not yet "gotten down to the nitty-
> gritty" on particular issues on which it will focus, but said that it will
> analyze economic policy, law and regulation. Some preliminary discussion
> points may include intellectual property, state issues and general legal
> frameworks. IPI is designed in a similar frame to Highway 1, in that IPI is
> supposed to provide "high-quality analysis, research, education and outreach
> on a full range of economic, social and policy issues affecting and affected
> by the global development and use of the Internet."
> In an initial IPI statement, the group said its founding money came from
> America Online Inc. [NYSE:AOL], the Nasdaq exchange, the Morino Institute,
> MCI WorldCom [NASDAQ:WCOM], Network Solutions Inc. [NASDAQ:NSOL], the
> Potomac KnowledgeWay and the World Information Technology and Services
> Alliance.
> The Potomac KnowledgeWay, itself another non-profit "educational"
> organization located outside of Washington in Herndon, Va., hired the
> Washington Advisory Group, a science and technology consulting firm, to
> handle the proposal for the IPI.
> "This is the right idea at the right time," Jenkins said. "In less than a
> decade the Internet has grown from a network used primarily by university
> researchers and computer hobbyists to a thriving communications medium that
> links more than 100 million individuals worldwide. With the policy makers of
> both the United States and many of the major industrialized nations focusing
> an increasing amount of attention on the Internet, it has become critical to
> bring the global thinking, research and debate on these issues together in
> one central location."
> The IPI's working group -- it's nerve center -- includes Jenkins; NASDAQ
> President Alfred R. Berkeley; Virginia Polytechnic Institute for Information
> Systems Vice President Earving L. Blythe; Microsoft Corp.'s Research
> Assistant Director Jack Breese; Network Solutions Chairman Michael A.
> Daniels; Esther Dyson, the chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
> Names and Numbers (ICANN); George Mason University President Alan G. Merten;
> University of Maryland, College Park President Dan Mote; Johns Hopkins
> University Vice Provost for Research Theodore O. Poehler; Freedom Forum Vice
> President of Technology and Programs Adam C. Powell III; MCI WorldCom Chief
> Policy Counsel Jonathan Sallet; Washington Post Co. President and CEO Alan
> G. Spoon; and AOL Senior Vice President for Global and Strategic Policy
> George Vradenburg III.
> Noting that the working group and the seed capital sources represent several
> companies and other groups with very specific high-tech agendas on the Hill,
> Jenkins said that "we are taking great pains to make sure that the funding
> comes from diverse sources."
>
> Copyright © 1999 CNN America, Inc.
>
> _________________________________________________________
> Tim Smith
> The Stencil Group - an interactive marketing consultancy
> tim () stencilgroup com
> 415-552-0586
> http://www.stencilgroup.com