Europe: January Surveys Highlight 2004 Trends By Karen Snider, theWHIR.com
Januart 14, 2004 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — As EuroTrust continues to reorganize, the company announced that it would start the New Year with resignations of two of its leaders. In good news for European Internet businesses, EURid announced this month that .eu domain names are finally on the way. In somewhat less pleasant domain-related news, a professor’s report on domain name governance sparked a heated response from the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries. While CENTR and Michael Geist clashed over his report, another study indicated that instant messaging, growing in use among UK workers, could potentially expose their employers’ systems to instant messaging viruses, overriding the safeguards that protect them from emailed viruses.
The study by Web and email filtering company SurfControl shows that UK workers are using instant messaging systems to avoid sending personal notes across their companies’ email systems. Up to 40 percent of 500 workers from large UK enterprises are using instant messaging at work, mostly for personal reasons, the study shows. Another 42 percent reported using instant messaging to talk to co-workers because it is quicker than email. Only 34 percent worried they could get a virus through instant messaging.
SurfControl’s marketing director, Martino Corbelli, says instant messaging is likely going on in 80 percent of businesses, even though many employers don’t know about it. The problem with instant messaging, he said, is that it poses the same risks to companies that email did in its early days: loss of staff productivity, strain on the network’s resources, possible legal implications for inappropriate content, and security issues because of possible viruses. The virus threat in instant messaging hasn’t grown as bad as it has with email, Corbelli said. However, he suspects the problem will get worse as people look for new ways to transmit viruses.
“It’s not to say that instant messaging doesn’t have its place in the work place,” he said, “but typically, it would need to be a secured system.”
The highly anticipated .eu names should be up for grabs by November, reports EURid (the European Registry of Internet Domain names). But the launch of the .eu names is still dependant on the European Commission’s confirmation of the public policy rules for the domain. Without knowing the rules for such issues as registration, the sunrise period and dispute resolution, EURid says it can not finalize the registry procedures. The company expected the rules to be confirmed at the end of February. Plans for a .eu domain extension have been in the works for several years. EURid was appointed by the European Commission the task of managing the .eu names in May.
Professor Michael Geist and the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR) faced off when CENTR officials declared that the conclusion of a report written by Geist seemed “perverse.” The Canadian professor’s report was completed after 60 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) member states responded to a survey of questions on governmental involvement in national and international Internet and governance issues.
“The most significant finding of this global survey is that, at least at the national level, governments are currently deeply involved in domain name registration,” the report states.
CENTR chairman Paul Kane responded by saying: “In the last decade the general trend has been to de-regulate markets in the communications industry, which continues to stimulate economic growth and innovation. And it seems perverse that this ITU supported report is seeking to go against the proven successful trend.”
Geist claims the report did not reflect the views of the ITU. The ITU, he said, agreed to allow Geist to use its network of member states to distribute the survey and that the collected data would be used in their own ways.
Scandinavian information security provider EuroTrust continued to reinvent itself, this time with the resignations of its chief finance and operations officers. Chief operating officer Brian Mertz Pedersen will move into the company’s startup area, while chief finance officer Bertel Jensen leaves EuroTrust.
“As a result of the sale of the subsidiaries and our decision to close the branch office in Switzerland, the management has decided to streamline the administration of the company,” said EuroTrust chief executive officer Aldo Petersen.
Jensen joined the Denmark-based company in 1995 and helped negotiate the company’s affiliate agreement with VeriSign Inc. Corporate finance director Soeren Degn, who has been with EuroTrust since 2001, was named the new CFO. Pedersen, who announced his resignation in December, joined EuroTrust in 2000 after having founded the EuroTrust subsidiary Virus11. CEO Aldo Petersen assumes the duties of COO.
The changes in leadership follow a lengthy history of the company re-inventing itself. Its many changes have included the transformation of its WISEhouse into EuroTrust Netvaulting and more recently, the sale of its secure Web hosting subsidiary to the Danish IT company Mondo.
While EuroTrust’s evolution will no doubt continue into 2004, the trends reported through the survey results released this month highlight trends that appear just as likely to influence the hosting business in Europe this year.
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