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A new study finds that states have lost much less money than previously projected on uncollected online sales tax. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) said Thursday that losses ran about $2.5 billion in 2001, less than a quarter of the $13.3 billion in lost revenues projected for 2001 in a University of Tennessee study. The DMA predicted that 2002 losses would total about $2.8 billion. While the Tennessee study projected a $54 billion loss in 2011, the DMA estimates the loss at $4.5 billion. The study stated that “the internet is not creating a massive leak in state coffers.” Collection of taxes on out-of-state retailers is illegal unless the retailers have a physical in-state presence, according to a 1992 Supreme Court decision. The Tennessee report relied on Forrester Research data from several years ago. The DMA employed recent Commerce Department figures. Also, the Tennessee report was released at the height of the dot.com craze while the DMA made adjustments for current economic conditions. Some e-tailers have begun voluntarily incorporating sales tax, though they’re still a minority.
Overture: Ignore rumors of our impending demise
Overture may have just gained some attractive resources, including search engine AltaVista, in the past few weeks, but a very unattractive rumor sparked a stock sell-off on Friday. On Friday a U.S. newspaper reported that Yahoo was in talks to buy out the European firm Espotting, Overture’s biggest rival in the advertiser-sponsored search results market. The Wall Street worry? Yahoo currently uses Overture technology and is one of Overture’s two biggest customers (along with Microsoft). Were Yahoo to buy Espotting, it would mean so long to Overture. The latter’s stock dropped by 12 percent to a 17-month low Friday, even while Espotting scrambled to deny the reports. A spokeswoman said that the company is not for sale. Rumors continue to swirl, however, that Yahoo will cut Overture service eventually in favor of developing its own advertiser-sponsored search results. The approach has shown much more growth over the past year than banner ads.
Cyber war worm aims for Pakistani gov't sites
Indians and Pakistanis have gone high-tech in their long-running dispute. Hackers from the two neighboring countries have been engaged in cyber warfare since December, with Indian hackers apparently making the latest move. A group called the Indian Snakes claims to have launched a new version of the Yaha email worm that the two groups have been passing back and forth. According to anti-virus firm Sophos, the worm whittles a back door on infected machines and duplicates itself to everyone in an email address book. The aim of this latest Yaha-Q worm is to launch denial-of-service offensives on five Pakistani web sites, including two government sites and the Karachi Stock Exchange. The worm also sends taunting anti-Pakistan messages to the computers it infects. Sophos says that the worm has not spread because of anti-virus software and an effort by recipients not to click on mysterious attachments.
New service: Making a Match en Español
Personals ads were one of the top three paid-content areas on the web last year. The most frequented site among them has figured out how to reach a new audience that has not been targeted on most U.S. sites. Match.com and Univision Online have partnered for a new Spanish-language personals portal in the United States. The new site (univision.match.com) will be accessible through links on Univision.com, site of the country’s highest-rated Spanish-language TV network. Services will be the same as on the original Match.com site. This marks the first time Match.com has offered Spanish ads.
March 17, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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