An important milestone in the effort to tax Internet retail sales will be reached Saturday when a group of states adopt provisions established by the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP) to collect sales taxes.

This move has been under discussion for sometime now and it appears that at least in some areas tax will be collected from those that market online…

The voluntary program is a big step toward establishing more uniform ways of collecting some $18 billion in taxes that are currently lost to states and municipalities. Congressional leaders have said they will step in with federal legislation once states have hammered out agreements among governments and retailers on sales tax collection machinery.

October first is just another step towards collecting more taxes, said Charles Collins, vice president of government affairs at Taxware, a vendor of tax calculation and compliance systems. Its voluntary. A lot of retailers wont start until after the holiday shopping season. It will be a gradual effect.

[ Continue reading at techweb.com ]

A timely reminder, Disaster Recovery: Are You Prepared…

Scores of IT infrastructure professionals have been working night and day to recover data centers that were either devastated or put out of service due to Hurricane Katrina. The lucky ones, which were prepared for such a catastrophic disaster, recovered their systems at alternative locations weeks ago and are now in the process of planning an orderly migration back to their old data center, or in some cases, a new data center.

The less fortunate ones who did not have a solid disaster recovery plan are still struggling to deliver mission critical and financial data to their respective business teams.

So what do you have in place to deal with the unforseen…

[ Continue reading to find out what you can do at enterpriseitplanet.com ]

Are you wondering whether you should promote your business online…Well with web usage growing rapidly internationally maybe now is the time to get on board.

The following chart shows you why…

The worldwide active Internet population continues to grow. Of 11 countries tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings, only Germany and France lost more active Internet users from July to August 2005. The figures can be compared with other countries on the Web Worldwide chart.

[ Continue reading at clickz.com ]

Search engines videos now play within a browser; no additional software needed.
Google has improved its Google Video service by eliminating the need for users to download software to play back videos, the Mountain View, California-based company has announced.

This is a good step forward by Google upgrading the service that they introduced earlier this year.
It is my belief that they will continue to improve this as video via the internet becomes more popular.

The services videos now play within a Web browser without the need for additional software, says Peter Chane, senior business product manager for Google Video.

Moreover, the previously Windows-only playback service is now available to users whose PCs run the Linux and Mac OS operating systems.

[ Continue reading at pcworld.com ]

New restrictions on Internet news content in China are aimed at controlling an increasingly independent society that is demanding more rights protections, reports and analysts said.

I thought the days of censoring news and or speech was over but this latest report tells of the contrary…

The new rules issued Sunday by the State Council, Chinas cabinet, require Internet operators to re-register their news sites and police their sites for content that can endanger state security and social order.

The rules are the latest in Chinas efforts to keep unhealthy content like pornography and anti-government reports off the Internet and the newest building block in what has come to be known as the Great Firewall of China.

[ Continue reading at yahoo.com ]