E-Commerce Notes

• Reliability, and not content, is fueling the switch to high-speed Internet access, according to a new study by Jupiter Media Metrix. The primary motivation for dial-up users to switch to broadband is the "always on" feature. The researchers estimate that 16 percent of U.S. households have high-speed access, and another 24 percent are considering signing up in the next 12 months.

• First quarter 2002 retail sales over the Internet totaled $11.6 billion, a 41 percent increase over the first quarter of 2001, according to Bizrate.com, an e-commerce research firm. Both the number and average size of transactions were up. This year's first quarter transactions averaged $127 per purchase on 91 million transactions, compared to $120 per purchase on 68 million transactions a year earlier.

• On-line banking is taking off. A report from Financial Insite, publisher of the Online Banking Report newsletter, found that 22 million U.S. households (21 percent of the total) use some online banking features, compared to just 7 million as recently as three years ago. Of those using online banking, 10 percent (2 million households) have signed up for account aggregation. Financial Insite founder Jim Bruene told CBS Marketwatch.com that "after seven years covering the industry, we can finally say that Web banking is a mainstream consumer activity. Consequently, banks that excel in online delivery are better positioned to retain customers and add new ones no matter what the economy does."

• A new national survey of commercial Internet sites suggests continued evolution and improvement in online privacy practices. Released by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the report attempted to replicate a Federal Trade Commission survey of websites conducted in 2000. The latest survey found that web sites are collecting less personal information. Among the most popular 100 domains, the proportion collecting personal information fell from 96 to 84 percent, while the proportion using third-party cookies to track surfing behavior fell from 78 to 48 percent. The percentage of top-100 websites offering consumers a choice about whether information was share with third parties rose from 77 percent to 93 percent. The use of "opt-in" as a method of choice more than doubled from 15 to 32 percent. Jeffrey A. Eisenach, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, commented that "The changes are evolutionary and not revolutionary, but from a consumer perspective, they are all in the right direction."