China is becoming one of the world’s fastest growing players on the global information and communications technology market.

Letter to the editor: One way OECD countries and others benefit from globalisation is by helping their businesses stay profitable through cost-effective outsourcing, mainly to China and India, and including some knowledge-based activities. In time, these will account for most outsourced work, but as emerging exporters cater to their own domestic markets, the playing field will level out somewhat. Innovation will be important for everyone to stay ahead.

Almost every household in China has a mobile phone. In fact, China is now the world’s largest mobile phone market, both in demand and supply: 303 million mobile phones were produced in China in 2005, exceeding production levels in most OECD countries. However, as this year’s OECD Information Technology Outlook points out, mobile phones are not the only sector of information and communication technology (IT, also known as ICT) where China is making inroads.

Despite the dot.com crash of 2001, growth in broadband has been strong. Indeed, the number of broadband Internet connections in OECD countries has risen from an average of 2.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in 2001 to 13.6 per 100 in December 2005.

Though the dot.com crash of 2001 burst the e-commerce bubble, recent figures show that broadband has remained dynamic. Indeed, growth in the number of broadband Internet connections in OECD countries has risen from an average of 2.9 in 2001 to 13.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in December 2005.

Planning next year’s studies? Why not consider reading E-Learning in Tertiary Education: Where Do We Stand? This latest report from the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) says that in addition to lifting constraints of time and place, electronic learning can be more personalised, flexible and even less expensive than conventional learning places.

Can technology bring better government? Anyone who has filled a tax return online would probably answer yes. But is that enough? The answer is, probably not. A new report, E-Government for Better Government, the second phase of an OECD project launched in 2001, suggests that while in principle, e-government instruments can improve efficiency, increase citizen awareness and help promote new initiatives, it is not enough just to open a website. The basic key challenges remain the same in the real world as in the virtual one: how to be more agile, responsive and accountable.

Beyond the haves and have-nots of mobile handsets, PCs or hand-held IT devices, there is a deeper, and perhaps more debilitating, layer to the digital divide. And that is the availability (or lack) of basic network infrastructure in low-income economies.

Despite the legal wrangles over online entertainment, trading in audio and video on the Internet remains high, particularly among young people. The downloading of video and other files increased sharply in 2002-2003, helped by a rise in improved file-sharing systems, and new DVD and CD burning technologies.

How much do our knowledge-based societies actually invest in knowledge? One way to find out, according to OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard published in May, is to work out the sum of three spending areas: R&D, higher education (public and private) and software. The figures are reworked where possible to avoid overlap between, say, education and R&D.

Are computers really everywhere? Not in some schools. Governments have invested heavily in the past 20 years to make computers and the Internet available in schools in the most advanced OECD countries, but their use by teachers and students is disappointing, a new report says.

Letter to the editor: "Whatever happened to the dream of hedonism we were once led to expect? Surely, new technology should help us work less, but instead the incentive seems to be to take advantage of technology and work even harder!"

Supermarket bills may seem to be getting ever higher, but OECD people devote a great deal less of their income to buying food, and a huge amount more to transport and communications, than your 17th century ancestors, a new historical look at statistics shows.

Thanks to advances using information technology, we now know far more about our bodies, how they function, and how they are built. But there are challenges, not least in safeguarding personal data.

Finding a satisfying career is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Nor is it easy in modern, complex labour markets: job content changes, new occupations grow, other occupations decline. Yet, if people can find the work they want, then both human happiness and the efficiency of the labour market increase. Where to start?

Just as demand for scientists worldwide is booming, many countries are warning of a looming shortage. Are they right?

When business gurus and industry captains gathered for Telecom World 2003 at the International Telecom Union in Geneva this October, they all agreed that telecoms continued to grow, but not as much or in a manner they expected.

Could the information age spell the death of information? This is a genuine risk that proper action to store websites and other electronic information can avoid. Now the British have enacted legislation so that electronic publications would be saved for future generations.

Switzerland is hosting the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva from 10–12 December 2003 and is committed to making this summit work. But what is it all about? Will it be yet another summit with political statements and resolutions of limited relevance or will it really make a difference?

Information technologies offer great potential for the world economy and society. But several challenges and risks must be overcome on the way.

Making information systems trustworthy is a job that concerns everyone. What can be done? A cultural change is needed in the society’s perception of information technology security.

Broadband access is already widely available in the OECD area, yet not everyone is biting. Why?

Everyone has read about the benefits of broadband technology and if you have just opened this article online with a slow speed modem, perhaps you will want to read more. For the transition from traditional phone-internet communications to broadband is rather like the shift from propeller planes to the jumbo jet.

What about the environmental impact of computers? As this French components recycling plant suggests, this may not be negligible. There are direct effects associated with the production and use of IT equipment, as well as with millions of computers, together with their metals and other hazardous substances, being disposed of every day.

Education may be a competitive business these days, though not just for course work, degrees and diplomas. Rather, universities are discovering that innovations from their science departments can have market value.

Burst bubble or not, the digital economy continues to grow, as mainstream businesses move transactions online and e-commerce specialists such as Apple’s Music Store, e-Bay and Amazon thrive. That makes governments keen to collect taxes on online sales.

Telecommunications costs – phone installation and the cost of time spent on calls – have fallen sharply in recent years, so why is it that OECD households are devoting an ever larger share of their income to communications?

Telecoms services companies have had a rough ride of late. Can they bounce back to the heady days of the late 1990s? Unlikely, but with restructuring under way and innovations still to come, the outlook is not dim, as long as governments continue their drive to keep markets open.

In 2001 an OECD ministerial report, The New Economy: Beyond the Hype, concluded that information and communications technology (ICT, or IT as it is also known) was an important technology that had the potential to contribute to more rapid growth and productivity gains in OECD economies in the years to come.

Despite the headlines, electronic commerce is far from finished. It is just starting. It remains central to the OECD’s vision of a networked world and the potential it holds for economic growth, job creation, increased world trade and improved social conditions. And improving trust is central to developing e-commerce. Consumers and businesses need to know that their use of network services is secure and reliable, whether a company is tendering for an overseas contract by e-mail or an individual is ordering an organic free-range turkey for Sunday lunch.

Remember the new economy? With the economic slowdown, the dot.com crash and the events of 11 September many people have decided to try to forget. Yet, while the exuberance may be over and a new realism is the order of the day, the OECD is looking to a resurgent new economy to drive the next phase of growth. But, given the experience of the past two years, can we be confident that the new economy will not be a more unstable and dangerous place than the old?

Internet use has mushroomed in OECD countries in recent years, but electronic commerce is still sleepily taking its time to get off the blocks, the latest OECD Information Technology Outlook shows. Consumers and businesses have so far been slow to swap their shopping baskets for a keyboard even in countries where Internet access is most widespread. In countries that currently measure the value of Internet sales, they accounted for just 0.4% to 1.8% of total sales in 2000.

When the euro became legal tender at midnight on 31 December, line-ups for cash immediately formed not at the shut doors of European banks, but at the electronic tellers, the ATMs. The new currency virtually eased into circulation, fuelling the prediction this report spells out, that money’s destiny is to become digital.

The challenges and advantages of competition in the telecommunications sector, notably the role it can play in reducing the digital divide, were high on the agenda at an OECD conference on telecoms policy for the digital economy in Dubai in January 2002. The conference of regulators and representatives of business, civil society and international organisations from OECD and non-OECD countries, stressed the importance of introducing competition and raised awareness among participants of the need for reforms of telecom regulation.

In 2000 commentators everywhere were hailing the boom in some western economies as the dawn of a new economy. In 2001, with a slowdown biting in the US economy, dot.coms folding and information and communications technology firms feeling the pinch globally, the headline writers have swung the other way, saying that it was all a myth. Was it?

The emerging digital divide is, unfortunately, a new symptom of some of our oldest global problems – the persistent divides between illiteracy and knowledge, sickness and health, and poverty and wealth. While technology will not solve these basic problems, it can offer powerful digital dividends that enhance sustainable development.

E-businesses are not in decline, rather they are growing up. Governments should take note. With astonishing speed, the mood on e-business has swung from hysteria to hangover. Pick up a newspaper these days, and you get a distinct sense that there is almost a gloating about the gloom.

The OECD has released a set of reports and technical papers showing strong progress towards achieving international consensus on the tax treatment of electronic commerce, and is inviting public comment on several issues.

Multilateral trade agreements have helped e-commerce get ahead in many direct and indirect ways. Two notable contributions include:

The Internet was still in its infancy in 1994 when the head of Chile’s tax service, Javier Etcheberry, saw an important role for it: a tool to help his department provide an efficient, high-quality service to the community. Perhaps an expected task for any modern democratic government, but it was a brave and inspired move at the time. And it is one that has been thoroughly vindicated; this year more than half the tax information filed by employers and a quarter of the country’s income tax returns were filed online.

Imaginative fraudsters have been quick to use the web to turn a dishonest penny. In one case investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumers were duped into making costly international telephone calls in a bid to ward off bills for goods they had not actually ordered. The scammers sent thousands of consumers an e-mail message thanking them for their order for goods priced at between $250 and $899 dollars, and informing them that their credit cards would be billed accordingly. The recipients were further perplexed when they found that the return address on the e-mail did not work. So they rushed to telephone the customer complaint number given in the e-mail.

The Internet is wonderfully versatile, which is why everyone is turning to it for information and trade. The trouble is, so are criminals. All sorts of crimes are committed using the net, from straightforward hacking to industrial espionage, sabotage, fraud, infringement of copyright, illegal gambling and trade in narcotics, medicines and armaments. The web is also used to peddle child pornography. And it is a vehicle for the dissemination of hate literature.

There used to be only two ways to buy a book: either order it via a catalogue or book club – a sometimes lengthy and unreliable process – or, more commonly, simply go to a shop, pay cash and take it home in a paper bag. Now, a customer can visit an online bookshop, view a book, read its blurb, browse through the shop’s collection, make a selection, and pay for the book online. The book may be delivered physically or, in some cases, downloaded onto the buyer’s computer. These new ways of buying a book apply to other goods and services too. And as many of the orders are international, this raises challenging issues for existing trade rules.

OECD members have embarked on an “e-government revolution”, using new technologies to provide more convenient access to public information, improve the quality of public services and make it easier for citizens to have a say in government.

At first glance, Internet-based shopping seems to have benefits for both the consumer and the environment. Consumers believe they are getting better prices and greater convenience. Environmentalists believe that transportation and collateral costs are reduced because there are fewer trips to shopping malls. But are they right?

In 1980s Britain a leading government figure famously told the unemployed to get on their bikes and find a job. By 2000 that quip might have been “get on the Net and start up your dot.com”. During the NASDAQ boom of recent years, the advice made some sense, and getting a job with a new economy star firm was a tantalising option for many. But then came the hype: the business cycle was dead, we were told, and the hierarchical relationships between employees and employers had been flattened forever.

For many developing countries, inadequate telephone service is a major obstacle to joining the e-commerce age. Sri Lanka’s experience shows that competition is the key to improving telecom access.

Businesses have a key role to play in bringing e-commerce to developing countries. But the challenges are great.

Electronic commerce presents a raft of policy challenges for the international community. Agreement on basic principles for regulation and self-regulation is difficult but essential.

E-commerce has only just begun and already everyone is talking about m-commerce. What is it exactly? And who can benefit?

The dot.coms that were the darlings of the stock markets just a few months ago have gone into hibernation. I say hibernation because I believe that some of them, those that have real value, will return. Others which floated upwards on wishful thinking may never again find their way into serious investment portfolios. Indeed, many of them have already folded. What does this mean, if anything, for the future of electronic commerce?

The mythical Greek hero Odysseus had to use all his intelligence to navigate between Scylla, a rock monster whose six heads plucked hapless sailors to their doom, and the fatal whirlpool Charybdis in his odyssey across the Mediterranean more than 2,000 years ago.

Technological development may have greatly enhanced the security of the information system as a whole. But it has also given potential attackers the chance of far faster penetration into data systems (whether personal, corporate or government) and with wider and deeper effects. What’s more, new technology allows attackers to leave few traces behind, all of which makes the criminal investigators’ task difficult. Meanwhile, the international network enables almost anyone to get hold of the tools they need to attack systems.

Should governments be responsible for protecting consumers’ rights in the Internet economy? If the answer is yes, how can governments safeguard their citizens’ interests when they do business from a home computer with companies on the other side of the globe? These are the key challenges facing governments in the Internet age. Apart from consumer protection, policy makers have to decide what to do about privacy, taxation, copyright and a whole series of other issues that have acquired a new importance because of the digital revolution.

Electronic commerce has been a much used and abused term. A lot of hopes have been placed in it, a lot of promises made of it, and yet its precise meaning has not always been easy to pin down. One thing is clear: in terms of transactions e-commerce is large – equivalent to the total value of industries such as pharmaceuticals and computer hardware – and growing.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and e-commerce have not only begun to change the shape of business, but the map of the world economy has been affected too.

Trust is key to the growth of e-commerce, but as with most areas of business, trust comes with time. People in OECD countries are slowly getting used to the concept of doing business electronically, whether it be to shop on the Internet or to take care of their own banking. Even in France, where buying airline tickets and making theatre reservations online has been fairly widespread for several years, thanks to the relatively secure, but technically limited Minitel, the use of the Internet for e-business has finally begun to pick up. One important reason for this change is the growth of secure servers.