On-line Advertising and the Internet Content Industry Applied to on-line content the advertising model leads to similar problems like in the traditional media. Dependence on advertising revenue puts pressure on content providers to consider advertising interests. Nevertheless new difficulties caused by the technical structure of online media, missing legal regulation and not yet established ethical rules, appear.

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The Advertising Industry The advertising industry is dominated by three huge advertising networks, which offer their services throughout the world. Gross income of the three leading agencies is twice as much, as the one of places four to ten. Table: World's Top 10 Advertising Organizations 1999 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars) Rank 1999 Advertising Organization Headquarters World-Wide Gross Income 1999 1 Omnicom New York, USA $ 5,743.4 2 Interpublic Group of Cos. New York, USA $ 5,079.3 3 WPP Group London, UK $ 4,819.3 4 Havas Advertising Levallois-Perret, France $ 2,385.1 5 Dentsu Tokyo, Japan $ 2,106.8 6 B Com3 Group Chicago, USA $ 1,933.8 7 Young & Rubicam Inc. New York, USA $ 1,870.1 8 Grey Advertising New York, USA $ 1,577.9 9 True North Chicago, USA $ 1,489.2 10 Publicis SA Paris, France $ 1,434.6 Table: Top 10 Global Marketers 1998 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars) Rank 1998 Advertiser Headquarters World-Wide Media Spending 1998 1 Procter & Gamble Co. Cincinnati (US) $ 4,747.6 2 Unilever Rotterdam (NL)/London (UK) $ 3,428.5 3 General Motors Corp. Detroit (US) $ 3,193.5 4 Ford Motor Co. Darborn (US) $ 2,229.5 5 Philip Morris Cos. New York $ 1,980.3 6 Daimler Chrysler Stuttgart (GER)/Auburn Hills (US $ 1,922.2 7 Nestle Vevey (SUI) $ 1,833.0 8 Toyota Motor Corp. Toyota City (JP) $ 1,692.4 9 Sony Corp. Tokyo (JP) $ 1,337.7 10 Coca-Cola Co. Atlanta (US) $ 1,327.3 On the other hand the three biggest advertisers only spend about US$ 2 millions less than places four to ten together. Whereas money spent on advertising in traditional media comes from very diverse categories, companies offering computer hard- and software, peripherals or Internet services mainly pay for on-line advertisements. Table: Top 10 Internet Advertisers 1998 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars) Rank 1998 Advertiser Internet Spending 1998 1998 - 1997 % Change 1 Microsoft Corp. $ 34.9 9.4 2 IBM Corp. $ 28.5 58.6 3 Compaq Computer Corp. $ 16.2 169.8 4 General Motors Corp. $ 12.7 84.8 5 Excite $ 12.4 1.5 6 Infoseek Corp. $ 9.3 22.3 7 AT&T Corp. $ 9.3 43.5 8 Ford Motor Co. $ 8.6 46.7 9 Hewlett-Packard Co. $ 8.1 102.9 10 Barnes & Noble $ 7.6 280.2 Source: Advertising Age

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Commercial vs. Independent Content Commercial media aim towards economies of scale and scope, with the goal to maximize profits. As advertising money usually is their primary source of revenue their content very often is attuned to meet the needs of advertisers and marketers. Information necessary for a citizen's participation in the public sphere usually only plays a minor role in their programming, as it does not comply with the demands of an economic system whose principal aim is the generation of profit. They also virtually always are structured in accord with and to help reinforce society's defining hierarchical social relationships, and are generally controlled by and controlling of other major social institutions, particularly corporations. Independent content provider on the other hand mostly act on a non-profit basis and try to avoid dependence on corporate powers and the state. One of their main concerns is the critical observation of public interest issues. The central aim of independent content provider's activities usually is to bring aspects and standpoints neglected by the (commercial) mainstream media to the public and subvert society's defining hierarchical social relationships. Promoting public debate and an active civil society they engage in the organization of alert actions and information campaigns or create subversive art

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Timeline BC ~ 1900 BC: Egyptian writers use non-standard Hieroglyphs in inscriptions of a royal tomb; supposedly this is not the first but the first documented example of written cryptography 1500 an enciphered formula for the production of pottery is done in Mesopotamia parts of the Hebrew writing of Jeremiah's words are written down in "atbash", which is nothing else than a reverse alphabet and one of the first famous methods of enciphering 4th century Aeneas Tacticus invents a form of beacons, by introducing a sort of water-clock 487 the Spartans introduce the so called "skytale" for sending short secret messages to and from the battle field 170 Polybius develops a system to convert letters into numerical characters, an invention called the Polybius Chequerboard. 50-60 Julius Caesar develops an enciphering method, later called the Caesar Cipher, shifting each letter of the alphabet an amount which is fixed before. Like atbash this is a monoalphabetic substitution.

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Electronic Messaging (E-Mail) Electronic messages are transmitted and received by computers through a network. By E-Mail texts, images, sounds and videos can be sent to single users or simultaneously to a group of users. Now texts can be sent and read without having them printed. E-Mail is one of the most popular and important services on the Internet.

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Sputnik At the beginning of the story of today's global data networks is the story of the development of satellite communication. In 1955 President Eisenhower announced the USA's intention to launch a satellite. But it was the Soviet Union, which launched the first satellite in 1957: Sputnik I. After Sputnik's launch it became evident that the Cold War was also a race for leadership in the application of state-of-the-art technology to defence. As the US Department of Defence encouraged the formation of high-tech companies, it laid the ground to Silicon Valley, the hot spot of the world's computer industry. In the same year the USA launched their first satellite - Explorer I - data were transmitted over regular phone circuits for the first time, thus laying the ground for today's global data networks. Today's satellites may record weather data, scan the planet with powerful cameras, offer global positioning and monitoring services, and relay high-speed data transmissions. But up to now, most satellites are designed for military purposes such as reconnaissance.

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Nadia Thalman Nadia Thalman is director of MIRAlab at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Thalmann has become known as the creator of "virtual Marylyn", an installation which allowed visitors to literally to slip into Marylyn's shoes. Thalman's work is located at interface between science and art. It is about modelling human bodies for science and creative purposes, e.g. as virtual actors in movies. Thalman insists that artificial beings must be beautiful, in addition to being useful, as we will be living with them at close quarters.

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Economic rights The economic rights (besides moral rights and in some cases also neighboring rights) granted to the owners of copyright usually include 1) copying or reproducing a work, 2) performing a work in public, 3) making a sound recording of a work, 4) making a motion picture of a work, 5) broadcasting a work, 6) translating a work and 7) adapting a work. Under certain national laws some of these rights are not exclusive rights of authorization but in specific cases, merely rights to remuneration.

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