Travel Groups Lobby For Fair Internet Access
<B> Travel Groups Lobby For Fair Internet Access</B>
By Mary Ann McNulty
<I>Washington, D.C.</I> - Concerns over increasing attempts by Microsoft--or other future entities--to dominate Internet commerce have prompted a broad range of companies and groups, including the Sabre Group, American Airlines, the American Society of Travel Agents and the Air Transport Association, to forge an alliance called The Project to Promote Competition and Innovation in the Digital Age, or ProComp.
The Washington-based group was formed to educate and lobby the public, policymakers, businesses and trade associations on the potentially ruinous effects a monopoly could have on the nascent e-commerce market.
"The supporters of ProComp understand that, if our country is to continue to lead and remain economically powerful, there must be room for all to openly and fairly participate," said Mike Pettit, executive director of ProComp. "ProComp wants to ensure that in the transition to a digital economy, consumers can continue to have real and effective choice among competing products and services."
Organizers also want to ensure that access remains open for producers of Digital Age products. Other founding members include Netscape, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Sybase.
The Sabre Group joined the alliance over concerns about its Travelocity consumer site, said a spokesperson. Even though Travelocity has paid for preferential space in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, users still must dig down six or seven screens to access Travelocity--while Microsoft's competing travel booking site, Expedia, pops up immediately, she said.
Today, Microsoft produces more than 90 percent of all the software operating systems in personal computers and controls 90 percent of the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation suite markets. "Microsoft's control of the operating system software, combined with its production of an increasing array of software applications related to Microsoft's own online businesses in banking, news, travel and advertising, raise the very real potential that Microsoft will become virtually the sole gateway to the digital marketplace," ProComp stated in a position paper.
The arguments are being echoed in the current antitrust case filed against the software manufacturer by the Justice Department. After trying to negotiate a settlement, Microsoft said it will fight the case. Microsoft argues that the Justice Department is trying to penalize it for being innovative.
Ironically, one of the arguments ProComp makes, in a 28-page white paper detailing its concerns about Microsoft, is how American and United Airlines biased computer reservation screens to their advantage before the Departments of Transportation and Justice banned the practice in the 1980s. "By ensuring that their own flights appeared on the first line (or the first screen) disproportionately often, the network owners were reportedly able to shift an astonishing amount of revenue to their own services," the paper states. "American, for example, estimated that controlling the interface resulted in increased revenues for its own services in just one year, of between $78 million and $130 million--on a system that it estimated cost $180 million to develop. United, meanwhile 'conservatively' estimated its increased revenues for one year at $160 million.