Empower Proposes Ten Commandments for E-Commerce
NEW YORK--Free-enterprise promoter Empower America laid out its Ten Commandments of Internet Policy in its first look at the Internet and hi-tech industry at the Association for Interactive Media's annual dinner in San Francisco yesterday, which was presented to attendees here in New York simultaneously via a telephone link-up."If it moves, they want to tax it, if it continues to move, they want to regulate it and if it stops -- well then they want to subsidize it!" said Jack Kemp, Empower America's co-director and 1996 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Empower America, Washington, was invited to the AIM dinner, attended by e-commerce firms, so the two can partner to fight a possible overturning of the three-year moratorium on Internet taxation granted to e-commerce companies last October.
Empower America was unable to disclose its plan for promoting the Commandments to the relevant companies and bodies it is aiming to affect, but outlined the Commandments as follows:
1. Promote school choice and accountability.
2. Reduce and simplify taxes.
3. Welcome immigrants skilled in high technology.
4. Promote fast, affordable Internet access.
5. Protect children online, putting the responsibility on parents and schools.
6. Ensure online privacy.
7. Promote global stability and trade liberalization.
8. Ease encryption and export controls.
9. Enact tort reform and Y2K liability reform.
10. Protect intellectual property.
According to Paul Forringer, new ventures marketing manager of list broker Millard Group, Peterborough, NH, however, more interesting than the commandments themselves, "is whether people will have any interest in implementing them in their businesses."
