IP: The Risks in an Unregulated Internet

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

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/03digi.html

The Risks in an Unregulated Internet

By DENISE CARUSO


fter a year of big gambles, the biggest of all may be the wager that our 
exalted Internet, held together with baling wire and chewing gum in every 
conceivable way -- legally, structurally, economically -- is going to be 
able to withstand the coming heavy weather of a truly global, unregulated 
economy.

Or perhaps the question is whether we will be able to withstand a global, 
unregulated Internet.
In either case, here at ground zero -- in the United States, capital of 
global capitalism -- stock market experts are beginning to acknowledge what 
some of us have suspected for a long time: technology stocks, in 
particular, are being kept aloft on their own hot air.

People buy them because they are performing better than regular stocks; 
they are performing better than regular stocks because people keep buying 
them.

And the mystery surrounding Internet stock valuations -- what are the 
criteria? -- may have been solved last week by Michael Mauboussin, the 
chief investment strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston.

<snip>