By Barbara Kiviat Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Do you think you're more likely to look at an online ad if it contains 1) a picture, 2) an animation or 3) just text? The answer: just text. Surprised? Well, consider the man who was checking his e-mail when he came across a dating-service ad featuring a picture of a bikini-clad woman. He looked at the woman's face and chest once — and then at the surrounding text five times.

The Internet has cracked open a brave new world for folks whose job it is to spend ad dollars. The ability to track where a Web user clicks provides a sort of precision intelligence advertisers could have only dreamed of in decades past. But before a click comes a look, and according to new research, advertisers are often wrong about what attracts our attention.

By BRYAN WALSH

If you want to give a U.N. climate change negotiator indigestion, which isn't terribly hard to do these days, mention three letters: W-T-O. That stands for the World Trade Organization, the global body charged with supervising and liberalizing international commerce — and a whopper of a cautionary tale. Back in November 2001, in Doha, Qatar, the WTO launched what is known as the Doha Development Round of negotiations, an effort to increase global trade by reducing trade barriers. Eight years later, the "round" is still ongoing, the talks riven by deep disagreements — especially over agriculture subsidies in the West — between developed and developing countries. There's no end in sight. (See why India is playing hard to get on climate change.)

Now, global climate change negotiations appear headed toward the same aimless end. World governments will convene at the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, a self-imposed deadline for producing a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol. But as diplomats in Barcelona today concluded the last round of official U.N. talks before the summit, it's becoming clear that any agreement between developed and developing countries on greenhouse gas emissions limits will be next to impossible by December. "I don't think we can get a legally binding agreement by Copenhagen," admitted Yvo de Boer, the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), on Bloomberg Television.

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 6 — The government has always been able to count on billionaire Robert Kuok to keep domestic sugar prices steady even in times of great volatility in world markets.

But the businessman’s surprise exit last week from the trade that his family has controlled since the 1940s is raising concern that the days of stable sugar prices in the country may be numbered. Sugar is a controlled commodity in Malaysia.
 
“This is a highly complex business. Only a player like Kuok who is a big player in the world scene can absorb losses and keep prices stable when the international sugar market goes crazy,” said a Singapore-based sugar trader.

We seem to have a rather confused Minister dealing with consumer issues.  Just last month, he had given a strong statement that the Competition Policy or Fair Trade Policy would be tabled in Parliament in October.  He had emphasized in his statement that the rationale of the Act was to protect consumers and to act against business which manipulated the price of goods.  To date there has been no such Act.  As expected from this Minister, he let Malaysian consumers down.

Then contradicting his earlier statement in support of Competition and Fair Trade, he claimed yesterday that liberalizing sugar would cause problems to local sugar based industries.  Well, the whole idea of liberalizing the market is to allow more competitors in the market to break the power of the holders of APs, who can and do manipulate prices.  The issue is not that more competitors would reduce supply, that being a rather absurd argument; rather it is that the price of sugar is controlled. 

Monday, October 19th, 2009 04:27:00

Just like adults, children nowadays can access the Internet worlds without limits.

The question is, can they judge and differentiate what is good or bad for them? Can they protect themselves from being trapped by advertisements from companies promoting their products or being scammed by strangers who they think is their friend or even protect themselves from pornography sites that suddenly pop up on their screens?

Do they have enough knowledge or experience to make proper judgments?

All these will affect their growth throughout their life and affect their moral values. So, how can we protect our children from such risks on the Internet?