IP: FTC To Host Workshop on Emerging E-Comm Issues

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>
>******** www.cybertelecom.org **********
>
>http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/03/ecommerce.htm
>FTC to Host Workshop on Emerging Issues for
>Competition Policy in the E-Commerce Environment
>
>The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it
>will host a public workshop at its Washington D.C.
>headquarters on May 7 and 8 to explore certain
>competition issues that arise in connection with
>business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer
>(B2C) e-commerce. The Commission has approved a
>Federal Register notice, to be published shortly, that
>describes the topics and questions to be addressed at
>the workshop. Interested parties are invited to attend
>or to submit written presentations.
>
>The workshop will continue the dialogue initiated at
>the FTC's B2B workshop in June 2000. It will build
>upon the foundation laid at that workshop for
>understanding how to answer traditional antitrust
>questions in the context of new e-commerce
>technologies.
>
>The May 7 session will invite antitrust practitioners,
>economists, and business representatives to examine
>B2B mergers, interoperability, and operating rules
>against the background of specific hypotheticals. The
>goal is to elicit more information about varying
>approaches to competition issues that may be raised by
>B2Bs and to analyze certain issues not addressed at
>the June 2000 workshop.
>
>The May 8 session will examine selected issues
>associated with online distribution and marketing.
>Rather than debating familiar, long-standing issues,
>the session will focus on new fact patterns and
>selected competition policy issues that may arise in
>distribution and marketing over the Internet, in
>conjunction with or in comparison to offline
>distribution. The session will explore such issues as
>price and promotional coordination between online and
>offline distribution channels, sole online
>distributorships, exclusive dealing over the Internet,
>and the role of information-collection technologies in
>online distribution.
>
>An agenda, a set of discussion hypotheticals, and
>additional information relating to the workshop will
>be posted in advance of the workshop on the
>Commission's Web site,
>http://www.ftc.gov/opp/ecommerce.
>
>The workshop will be held in Room 432 of the Federal
>Trade Commission Headquarters Building, 600
>Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. It will be
>open to the public and the press, without fee, and
>advance registration is not required.
>
>Written presentations should be submitted in both hard
>copy and electronic form. Six hard copies of each
>submission should be addressed to Donald S. Clark,
>Office of the Secretary, Federal Trade Commission, 600
>Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.
>Submissions should be captioned, "Comments regarding
>E-Commerce Antitrust Issues." Electronic submissions
>may be sent by e-mail to ecommerce@ftc.gov or may be
>filed on a 3-1/2 inch computer disk with a label
>indicating the name of the submitter and the name and
>version of the word processing program used. The
>Commission vote to authorize the publication of a
>Federal Register notice announcing the workshop was
>5-0.
>
>Copies of the Federal Register notice are available
>from the FTC's Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also
>from the FTC's Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600
>Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. For
>more information about the workshop, please contact
>Gail Levine, Assistant Director, Policy Planning,
>Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
>N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580; telephone (202)
>326-3193; e-mail >326-3193; e-mail glevine@ftc.gov.
>
>MEDIA CONTACT: Claudia Bourne Farrell Office of Public
>Affairs 202-326-2181 STAFF CONTACT: William Cohen
>Deputy Director, Policy Planning 202-326-2110
>
>******** www.cybertelecom.org **********



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