TIME EUROPE
October 9, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 15
Techwatch
ONLINE PRIVACY
Keeping It Confidential
many web surfers worry that visiting a travel site, buying a book or joining in an electronic auction will reveal their private details to the world — or an employer or their mother. To increase consumer confidence in online transactions and global networks, as well as raise awareness of privacy issues among site owners and visitors, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is offering e-commerce sites a Privacy Policy Statement Generator. The questionnaire, available for use free of charge at the O.E.C.D.'s website, will help dotcoms give a reassuringly clear and detailed account of where they stand on privacy issues by partly automating the process. Accessible at http://cs3-hq.oecd.org/scripts/pwv3/pwhome.htm, the Generator asks questions about an organization's current privacy practices. For example, can visitors browse the site without disclosing personal data? Can they communicate with other visitors? Does the site use a third-party Web service provider that collects individual data? Does the site automatically log information? Does it provide a contact for visitors worried about privacy? A warning is triggered when an answer could clash with the o.e.c.d.'s privacy guidelines or those of a national or regional body — for instance, if the site intends to collect data on a visitor's religion, health, sex life or political affiliation. Once these concerns have been addressed, an e-commerce company can post the resulting tailor-made policy statement on its site.
SITE SEEING
Breaking Up Is So Very Hard to Do
Recently divorced or separated? UniqueYou offers advice and a shoulder to cry on. The site, at www.uniqueyou.co.uk, gives users a chance to get things off their chests, guidance on rebuilding social circles, and an opportunity to share thoughts with other recent singles and even exchange songs and sayings. Agony aunts and uncles provide their judgments on questions such as whether you should ask your children's permission to remarry (answer: No, just do it). The site aims to expand, and is soon to offer articles, news, supervised bulletin boards and personal journals with space for a daily life-summary and an e-mail question-and-answer service. Registered users will also be offered the opportunity to meet in local groups. UniqueYou could eventually become a way of life, as plans farther down the line include a national network of personal life coaches, personal development programs, recovery workshops and fun weekends. Why not ring your lawyer now?
WHAT'S NEXT
E-mail Mood Indicator: Mind Your Language
It's all too easy to fire off a hasty, ill-considered and offensive e-mail, in which harsh remarks aren't moderated by a friendly tone of voice or a smile. Mercifully, the latest version of the e-mail program Eudora has an optional feature that could help keep the peace. MoodWatch oversees the language of outgoing and incoming messages and flags aggressive or rude words and phrases using a chili pepper grading system — one-chili phraseology might pass with your close associates, but a three-chili rating could get you into trouble.
Robot Protester: C3P0 Woz Here
Instead of enduring messy face-to-face clashes with police at last week's IMF and World Bank meetings, demonstrators could have asked the Institute for Applied Autonomy for help. The group, based in the U.S., offers remote-control protest robots that can distribute subversive literature and scrawl hortatory graffiti on the road. Boasts the Institute's website (www.appliedautonomy.com): "Studies have shown that in nearly 100% of cases, a given agent of the public will willingly participate in high profile acts of vandalism, given the opportunity to do so via mediated tele-robotic technology."
Rural Broadcasting: Portable Radio
Indian researchers Vikas Markanday and Dayal Singh have assembled an inexpensive, low-power FM transmitter that fits inside a briefcase. Costing about $700, this portable radio station has a range of 15 km and weighs about 12 kg. With the recent privatization of India's broadcasting industry, the technology could open up the airwaves to community radio stations able to serve the country's isolated rural population. The research was supported by the Nutra Indica Research Council, a nonprofit organization that brings together scientists and rural innovators. Markanday and Singh plan to put the device into commercial production.
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October 9, 2000
COVER STORY
Wave Goodbye
A humiliating defeat in the Yugoslav elections leaves Milosevic clinging to power. But his days are numbered
The Rumpled Nationalist
A profile of Vojislav Kostunica
The Long Goodbye
Milosevic may be finished, but Serbia still has some questions to answer
EUROPE
Nej!: The Danish Fallout
Denmark's stunning rejection of the euro will be felt across the European Union and beyond
Denmark's Message
Hamlet's heirs want to know where Europe is going
A Tale of Two Cities
After 10 years of unity, Germany is still a nation divided by its past and burdened by the costs of its future
Flowering Landscapes
German reconstruction
Past Is Not Prologue
A reunified Germany is big, but not the bully that some had feared
Poland's Second Left Wing
Lech Walesa and Solidarity each face crushing electoral defeat
Tax, Lies and Videotape
A juicy political scandal marks a nasty, if bizarre, beginning to the Chirac-Jospin presidential race
Bounty Descendants Hunt A Future
Like their mutinous ancestors, the people of Pitcairn face hard times
MIDDLE EAST
Bibi Bounces Back
Netanyahu's corruption case is dropped, but will he rejoin — and be welcomed into — the political fray?
OLYMPICS
Sydney's Glorious Failure
Australia shows the world that a clean, orderly Olympics can be a winner
THE ARTS
The Fashion Games
These seven up-and-coming fashion designers are the ones to watch as they show their stuff for spring
Team Spirit Wins Again
A bleak story of football, the I.R.A. and Belfast's troubles becomes the stuff of a brave new musical
Moments in Time
The Bang-Bang Club risked — and some lost — their lives to capture defining images of human tragedy
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
To Our Readers
World Watch
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com
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