Paul Wallbank | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Securing the security system

The hacking of a Google building management system shows how important it is to take security seriously.

How vulnerable building management systems can be hit me ten years ago when working at an expensive Sydney harbourfront home a decade ago.

The householder – a rich banker – had spent millions on physical security to insulate his family from the outside world. Yet anybody could dial in and monitor what was happening in the house through the building’s CCTV and management systems.

Not only were the building’s CCTV and management systems were open to the net, but that the system’s serve ran on an antiquated and unsecured version of Windows 2000 that shared the home network with a couple of enthusiastically downloading teenagers.

It was a matter of time, perhaps hours, before the system was compromised with worm or virus. The security implications were enormous.

Even the banker’s business was vulnerable as a targeted hack into the home would allow people to monitor traffic on the network and intercept work related messages.

What was really shocking however was how the system vendor and integrator who’d installed it simply didn’t care about the client’s security problems.

So the news that one of Google’s Sydney offices BMS is exposed to the net shouldn’t be a surprise. Building Management Systems, as we saw with the rich banker’s house, are notorious for their poor security.

For Google this security breach is embarrassing although the responsibility for this flaw lies firmly with the building owner who should have made sure their systems are locked down and properly secured. You can’t throw this problem over the fence.

One wonders just how widespread these problems are with other industrial systems like SCADA devices and other remotely operated equipment.

Internet connected systems have been around now for twenty years, there are no longer any excuses for not taking these issues seriously.

Image courtesy of Tacluda through RGBStock

Is there a tablet to cure the reality distortion field?

Microsoft founder Bill Gates puts up an argument for Windows 8 tablets. But is he living in a reality distortion field?

It’s hard not to be impressed by the calibre of guests CNBC’s Squawk Box when they’re able to get Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on together for an interview.

During the interview Bill Gates made an interesting assertion about Apple’s iPad, ““A lot of those users are frustrated, they can’t type, they can’t create documents, they don’t have Office there.”

Bill’s undoubtedly right, some iPad users are frustrated by the device’s limitations. However for every irritated iPad user there are a dozen baffled by the lack of a Start button on Windows 8.

The reality distortion field though is strong, “Windows 8 really is revolutionary,” says Bill. “It takes the benefits of the tablet and the benefits of the PC and it’s able to support both of those.”

The Microsoft founder is enthusiastic about the company’s Windows tablet, “you have the portability of the tablet but the richness, in terms of the keyboard and Microsoft Office, of the PC.”

It’s notable Gates mentioned Microsoft Office, particularly given the question was about the cloud. It’s clear one of Microsoft’s priorities is to maintain their strength with productivity applications and move with their customers onto the cloud.

The problem though for Microsoft is that Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are dominating the cloud focused operating systems, leaving Windows behind.

Making matters worse for Microsoft is it’s clear Windows 8 tablets are never going to catch their competitors. Consulting group Gartner last year predicted the global market for tablet computers will double over the next three years, but Microsoft will capture barely 10% of the sales.

OS	2011	2012	2013	2016
iOS	39,998	72,988	99,553	169,652
Android	17,292	37,878	61,684	137,657
Microsoft	0	4,863	14,547	43,648
QNX	807	2,643	6,036	17,836
Other Operating Systems	1,919	510	637	464
Total Market	60,017	118,883	182,457	369,258

Sitting in a reality distortion field is fine when things are going well and you dominate your world, but Microsoft – despite still being insanely profitable – no longer dominates the markets that made it into one of the world’s leading companies.

The challenge for Bill Gates and Microsoft’s management is adapting to those changes, projecting your own frustrations onto the users of a competitor’s product, isn’t a recipe for success.

Snapping out of Australia’s China Dreamtime

China analyst Patrick Chavonec has a wake up call for Australia’s business and political leaders

Australia’s leaders need to snap out of their China dreamland analyst Patrick Chovanec told the Australian Davos Connection’s China Forum two weeks ago.

What triggered this comment was a speech by Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan to the Financial Services Council in Sydney last September where the Treasurer compared China’s economic performance to sprinter Usain Bolt;

It’s like Usain Bolt easing off a bit at the end of the 100 meters because he’s 10 meters in front and has already smashed the world record.

“My response was that if that’s the way Australia’s leaders are thinking about China’s economy, if that’s the dreamland that they are in, then they need to snap out of it really fast,” Chovanec said in his keynote.

“Because China is facing a very serious and potentially disruptive economic adjustment. A realistic idea of where this adjustment is going is essential to countries like Australia.”

Chovanec’s view is that China cannot sustain current growth rates by “providing the fodder of the consumerist economy.”

This was borne out in the Global Financial Crises where exports fell from 8% of GDP to 2%. To make up for the drop the PRC government stimulated the economy and investment went 42% of the economy to half.

It was this stimulus that drove the soaring commodity prices in recent years and underpins the Blue Sky Vision of Australia’s political and business leaders.

The establishment view is that China will move from infrastructure spending driving the economy to a consumption driven society.

Moving to a consumption driven economy though means a very different Chinese society which means a different group of winners and losers, Chovanec warns.

He also doesn’t see urbanisation as the real driver of the Chinese economy, “If you look around the world, urbanisation has not always driven economic growth.”

“It’s based on a premise that moving people from a rural environment to an urban environment generates productivity gains.”

“Now for China over the past thirty years that has proven largely true,” says Chavonec, “but going forward most of that hanging fruit has been picked.”

“In order to realise productivity gains, China is going to have to discover new areas of competitive advantage.”

The biggest risk that Chovanec sees at present though is the level of bad debts in the economy and the rate of credit expansion with a trillion dollars pumped into the Chinese economy over the last quarter.

“You’re getting less and less bang for the buck from credit expansion.”

Chovanec doesn’t see China’s future as bleak though, “the China growth story doesn’t have to be over.”

“There are a lot of sectors in China where there’s real potential for true productivity gains – agricultural, logistics, health car, services, consumer branding, retail.”

“The challenge for China is not that the growth story is over but the engine of that growth story is going to have to change.”

Dealing with those changes is also a challenge for countries like Australia who have staked all on the current growth story.

Chovanec’s wake up call to Australia’s leaders is timely – the question is how quickly they can wake up to the changes in China.

Building tech cities

What does London’s attempt to build a tech city teach others that want to create a Silicon Valley in their own town?

With the apparent success of the Silicon Valley business model, every city seems to want to emulate it. One region that’s probably gone further than most is supporting their local tech sector is London with its Tech City program.

But is it succeeding? The Guardian did an audit on the Tech City project and came away with some findings that aren’t particularly different from other cities.

What I personally find interesting is how the Digital Sydney project which I was involved in setting up during 2009-10 shares the flaws The Guardian has identified in the London initiative.

Identifying tech

One key criticism The Guardian has is that too many businesses are identified as being in the technology sector;

of the 1,340 companies, 137 are tech companies, 700 are PR or design agencies and 482 are “miscellaneous” – which includes charities, pubs, cafes and fashion boutiques. The remaining 21 companies were either entered more than once or entries with no information or link to an external site. So just 10% of companies in Tech City actually do technology, 53% are PR or design agencies, and 37% are “miscellaneous”.

This was true of identifying Sydney’s ‘digital hub’ – the vast majority of business surveyed were not actually tech businesses but movie post production, graphic designers and publishers. The technology sector was only a small group and the bulk of employment and investment came from large multinational corporations like IBM and Google.

Now it is possible to argue that businesses like post-production, publishing and broadcast media are ‘tech’, but then almost every industry could be thought of as ‘tech’ if you cast the net wide enough.

The problem is counting those businesses as being tech just on the basis they are heavy users of IT skews the numbers and gives an inflated view of how big the sector really is.

A capital city focus

One of the biggest criticisms of the Tech City initiative is that it is too London centric and The Guardian makes a good case about this, looking at cities like Brighton, Cambridge, Newcastle and Manchester.

A similar criticism could quite rightly be made about Sydney’s project, which focuses on the inner city enclaves of Surry Hills and Ultimo while ignoring most of the city or any of the state’s regional centres.

When I started at the New South Wales government I was warned by one old hand that “to these jokers NSW stands for North Sydney to Woolloomooloo.”

And so it proved to be.

Focusing on London’s Silicon Roundabout or Sydney’s Surry Hills also smacks of a ‘people like us’ syndrome where the support goes to nice middle class white folk – just like the politicians, public servants and captains of industry who run these programs.

Overemphasising tech

Another problem, not mentioned in The Guardian story, is the over emphasis on technology startups.

Projects like Tech City and Digital Sydney focus on last decade’s opportunities which Silicon Valley dominated. Governments look at California’s success and think we need to copy that when what we’re seeing is actually the fruits of the previous wave of opportunity.

It may well be that we’re repeating the mistakes of the 1950s and 60s where countries around the world imitated Detroit hoping to replicate the US’ success with the motor industry.

The costs of that error are still a millstone around taxpayers’ necks two generations later.

To be fair to those setting up projects like Tech City or Digital Sydney, they are attempts to harness the energy in their own cities but it may just be that government programs aren’t the best ways to bring entrepreneurs and inventors together.

Hopefully though their efforts will succeed although it’s more likely the next Silicon Valley will be just as much the result of a series of coincidences as today’s is.

3D printing comes of age

3D printing technologies are becoming available to home and business users.

It may well be that a technology has reached mainstream acceptance when the media starts writing scare stories and politicians demand that something must be done.

Should that be the case, then 3D printing has come of age with the story of the first gun being fabricated and demands that legislation be passed preventing people manufacturing their own firearms.

The story does raise a range of issues about community safety that 3D printing is going to present. When anybody can design and manufacture a piece of equipment, how can we be sure it is safe – or legal – to use?

We’re going to be facing these issues very soon as retail 3D printers have started appearing.

At $1299, the Cube 3D printer isn’t quite affordable for most households or offices but we can expect prices to fall as more devices come onto the market.

At the more advanced end of the 3D printing market, The University of Wollongong’s Centre for Electromaterials Science has opened a research unit at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital to create tissue material with biological 3D printers with the scientists beginning animal trials to reproduce skin, cartilage, arteries and heart valves.

So at one end of the spectrum we have hackers making plastic guns that freak politicians and scaremongering journalists out, while at the other there are scientists pushing the barriers of medical science.

We live in interesting times – and 3D printing is making things even more exciting.

Can Australia continue the mining employment boom?

Assuming the mining industry will drive Australian employment may turn out to be risky.

The Prime Minister’s comments at the ADC China Forum last week raised an important question about Australia’s mining boom – can the industry sustain employment as the construction of mines, ports and railways are completed?

After her keynote speech at the event’s gala dinner the Prime Minister was interviewed by Busines Spectator’s KGB – Alan Kohler, Robert Gottliebsen and Stephen Bartholomeusz – about the country’s relations with China.

In that interview, the Prime Minister was upbeat about the continued employment bonanza from the resources boom.

I think overwhelmingly the prospects are good for resources. There is nothing to fear here. The absolute peak of the price cycle has probably passed, but we will still be doing good business in resources. It will be supporting jobs.

A few days earlier Fortescue Mining Group’s CEO, Nev Power, spoke to Alan Kohler on Inside Business.

Nev was a little more circumspect about the prospects for continued booming employment in the mining sector.

our capital expenditure program and expansion is coming to an end around mid-year. And then we’re into a very high volume phase and it’ll be a matter of driving the maximum efficiency out of the business through that phase.

So even if the iron price and export volumes do hold up, it looks like the resources employment boom may be reaching its end as mining projects move from the labour intensive construction phase to being relatively hands off production mines.

If Nev gets his way with ‘maximum inefficiencies there may be fewer jobs to go around.

The Prime Minister – along with all of Australia’s political leaders – remains hopeful, as she said in her speech.

So we are not, indeed we have never been, simply a quarry or a beach; ours is a diverse and sophisticated economy and a valued trading partner with the biggest global economies.

As the expansion phase of the mining boom tails off, that economic diversity is going to be tested. Hopefully there is a Plan B.

Doing social media right

Whoever runs your social media feed is an official spokesman, it’s important to choose the right person and give them authority.

After last week’s Associated Press hack and the stock exchange fallout, regulators are struggling with implications of social media and informed markets.

In a speech delivered last week the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s Deputy Chair Belinda Gibson and Commissioner John Price gave some refreshing commonsense views on how businesses should handle public information.

The continuous disclosure advice given by Price and Gibson is aimed at meeting the requirements of Australian corporate law, but it’s actually good social media advice.

Having delegations in place for who has authority to speak on behalf of the company – whether in response to an ASX ‘price query’ or ‘aware’ letter, or when they become aware of information that needs to be released to the market, perhaps in response to speculation.
Ensuring that there is a designated contact person to liaise with the ASX, who has the requisite organisational knowledge and is contactable by ASX.
Have a clear rapid response plan and ensure all board members and senior executives are fully appraised of it. Give it a practice run every so often – a stress test of sorts.
Have a plan for when you will consider a trading halt appropriate.
Have a ‘Request for trading halt’ letter template ready for use.
Have guidelines for determining what is ‘material’ information for disclosure, tailored to your company.
Prepare a draft announcement where you are doing a deal that will
likely require an announcement at some time, and a stop-gap one in case of a leak

Having a nominated contact person with requisite organisational knowledge is possibly the most important point for any organisation.

Even if you think social media is just people posting what they had for lunch or sharing cute cat pictures, it isn’t going away and those Twitter feeds and Facebook pages are now considered official communications channels.

The intern running your social media is now your company’s official spokesperson. Are you comfortable with this?

A good example of where this can go wrong is the Australian Prime Minister’s Press Office where an immature staff member has been put in charge of posting messages. The results aren’t pretty.

The funny thing is the Prime Minister’s office would never dream of some dill getting up and saying this sort of thing on her behalf, yet allows an inexperienced, loose cannon put this sort of material in writing on the public internet.

Here’s Twenty Rules for Politicians using the Internet.

On a more mature level, the ASIC executives also have some good advice on writing for social media.

Don’t assume that the reader is sophisticated or leave readers to read between the lines. Companies need to highlight key information and tell it plainly.

While the ASIC speech is aimed at the specific problems of complying with company law and listing requirements, it’s a worthwhile guide for any organisation needing to manage its online presence.

Don’t be like the Prime Minister’s office, understand that an organisation’s social media presence is an official channel and treat it with the respect it deserves.

Is Thorsten Heins the world’s bravest executive?

Blackberry CEO claims the tablet computer’s day are coming to an end – it’s a very brave call.

“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet any more,” Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins told Bloomberg TV while showing off his company’s new Q10 handset.

Predicting the end of the tablet computer is a very brave call – particularly from a man whose company’s market share has fallen 90% since the iPhone was released – but does it have any merit?

Thorsten’s view is the smartphone is the device most people rely on. Of the three ‘screens’ we use, the mobile phone is the one we rely on the most and it will be increasingly important as mobile payments, NFC and other technologies develop.

Blackberry’s position is exactly the opposite of Microsoft’s ‘three screens’ strategy with Windows 8 where the aim is to have the same system running on phones, tablets and personal computers.

Apple and Google have chosen to modify their systems, or even have totally different ones such as iOS and OSX, to suit different sized devices.

Supporting the Blackberry view is the famous survey by the now defunct Nortel Networks in 2008 that found one third of workers would rather lose their wallet than their mobile.

When that survey was carried out five years ago, smartphones really hadn’t made much of an impact in the marketplace as Nokia and Blackberry dominated the handset industry.

Today, with smartphones from Apple and Samsung dominating, there’s no doubt the mobile phone is even more important to the typical user. So maybe Thorsten and the Blackberry team are onto something.

Even if the smartphone does turn out to be most peoples’ main computer, it’s unlikely tablets like the iPad are going to fade away as the larger format is too handy for many uses.

Like most things in life it’s a matter of choosing the right tool for the job and in many cases a tablet, or a Personal Computer, is the better device.

What is clear though, is that Blackberry has to make some big bets to survive, so Thorsten’s talking big is quite understandable. You have to give him points for chutzpah.

Disclaimer: I was given a Blackberry Z10 to trial while travelling in Tasmania. I couldn’t figure out how to use it.

There is no China Inc

The ADC China forum asked how foreigners view China as a nation.

“There is no China Inc” was the message from the first day of the Australian Davos Connection’s 2013 Future Summit in Melbourne last week.

For 2013, the annual two day ADC Future Summit was themed “China – where to from here?” with both international and Australian speakers discussing the Peoples’ Republic of China’s future and it’s effects on the world, particularly Australia.

Opening the speakers was Martin Jacques, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Author of ‘When China Rules The World.’

Martin Jacques has been on the wrong side of history before, having been the last editor of Marxism Today before its closure in 1991, giving his overview of China’s development an interesting flavour.

Returning to the historical norm

History has never seen a country so big grow, so fast in Jacques view. The US and British economic revolutions featured lower growth rates and much smaller populations compared to the modern Chinese experience.

Jacques quotes leading Chinese economist Hu Angang’s belief that China is returning to its global position of two hundred years ago where the nation made up a third of the world’s global economy – double today’s share.

The resilience of China’s society in Jacques’ view is driven by four factors; its two thousand year old culture, the legitimacy of its government, the competence of the civil service and its lack of desire to build colonies.

Despite China’s historical reluctance to build overseas empires the nation’s rise is still going to dramatically change regional politics.

Australia’s Challenge

Jacques raises the question of Australia making the jump from being in the US political camp to engaging with China and America on an equal basis.

“Australia has an important role to play in the region but only if it chooses to express its own views and interests,” says Jacques. The nation’s interests are not necessarily those of the United States.

The US is uncomfortable with China’s rise and Jacques believes the Obama administration’s policies in the Pacific are destined to fail because the United State’s Asian Pivot is essentially a military response while the PRC’s rise is due to economic dynamism.

Jacques main point was that the west misunderstands China by viewing the country as a nation-state when in fact it is a civilisation. This was a question that troubled the following panel.

Culture or nation?

Dr John Lee of the University of Sydney thought the idea of China as a civilisation would worry its neighbours were that view taken to the logical end point, “would that mean that China views the region in fundamentally hierarchical terms?”

“Australia is in a strategic holding pattern,” says Lee. “Australia like every other country in the region is hedging closer to America and each other just in case China doesn’t turn out benign.”

For Hugh White, Australian National University Professor of Strategic Studies, this insecurity surrounding China comes down to choices.

“China wants to be healthy and strong,” says White. “To do so, China has to face choices, but so too does America.”

“For Australia the choice is are we prepared to be a spectator in the process.”

Maintaining growth

How China can continue its economic dynamism was the biggest question facing the panel.

Patrick Chovanec, Chief Global Strategist of Silvercrest Asset Management, thinks China cannot sustain its current level of economic growth and points out that prior to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, China’s exports made up 8% of the country’s economy.

With the collapse in international trade following the 2008 crisis, that proportion dropped to 2%.

China made up that drop in demand by stimulating the economy and triggering the investment boom that sent global commodity prices – particularly iron ore and coal – soaring.

This infrastructure splurge is what Chovanec sees as unsustainable, and he challenges the view that Chinese urbanisation will drive the economy and imports.

“If you look around the world,” Chavonec says, “urbanisation has not driven economic growth.”

The problem with China’s infrastructure funded growth model is that building rates have to grow to maintain growth rates – if you build 100 high rises this year, you have to build 108 next year just to maintain the 8% growth rates.

Balancing sectional interests

Shifting from an export to a consumption based economy means a different China. “it creates a different set of winners and losers,” says Chovanec.

Balancing those interests of winners and losers is one of the key tasks for the Chinese leadership, “Various competing interests groups – the Party has to juggle the interests of those groups” says Linda Jackobson of the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

“We shouldn’t talk about China if it’s ‘China Inc.’” Jackobson says, “I don’t think China has a grand strategic plan. It has strategic goals but not a grand strategy.”

Jackobson sees there being three key objectives for the Chinese leadership; political stability, protecting territorial integrity and economic stability.

The role of the Communist Party

That political stability is an important factor when considering China’s leadership as stability is seen as maintaining the power of the Communist Party.

“We tend to assume an identity between the current communist government and the people.” Says Chovanec, “raising this issue is forbidden in many forums.”

Chovanec agrees with Jackobson that thinking about ‘China Inc’ and the assumption, or myth, of long term strategic thinking.

“When we look at Chinese companies going abroad we talk about the long term game plan.” Chovanec points out, “in fact if you look at the haphazard movements of Chinese companies moving abroad it’s been in fits and starts.”

The common factor from the first session’s speakers at the ADC’s China Forum was that the People’s Republic can’t be seen as a monolithic entity.

Should we accept Jacques’ view that China is a civilization and not a nation state, then understanding the relationships that underpin the cultural identity are key to working with the PRC.

On the other hand the panellists see China as a modern nation state with the government, like any other attempting to balance competing interests within society.

Both are more nuanced view of Chinese politics and the nation’s economy than what’s presented by the media and politicians.

Which was fitting as the Prime Minister gave the gala dinner keynote that evening which will be the subject of another post.

What is a fully informed market?

Controlling how a stock market receives information is becoming a huge task in the modern economy.

Given the stock market movements following last week’s Associated Press Twitter Hack it may be time to reconsider the way exchanges and listed companies share and control information.

One of fundamental principles of modern stock exchanges is that the market is fully informed – that everybody buying or selling security gets access to the same information at the same time.

In an Australian context, this is covered by a term called ‘continuous disclosure’, should a company’s management become aware of any issue that could affect they must advise the market immediately.

What’s interesting with this principle is the way that information needs to be made public, specifically clause 15.7 of the ASX listing rules.

An entity must not release information that is for release to the market to any person until it has given the information to ASX and has received an acknowledgement that ASX has released the information to the market.

This puts the Australian Securities Exchange, a private company with an almost monopoly position in the Australian investment community, in the position of being the ultimate gatekeeper of knowledge.

While there’s good regulatory and probity reasons for having a central clearinghouse – that the clearinghouse itself has some serious conflicts of interest is another matter – one has to wonder how long its position can be retained in a world where information is moving fast.

It may be however that we’re in a passing phase as the financial of the global economy has reached a stage where no stock exchange, futures market or clearinghouse can manage the data that’s flowing through it.

Time will tell, but the markets themselves are finding other ways to inform themselves.

Australia’s entrepreneurial opportunity

Can Australia make the most of it’s entrepreneurial desires?

The recent PwC report Startup Economy – How to support tech startups and support Australian innovation focused, naturally enough, on the barriers to developing a Silicon Valley like business community in Australia.

Unlike most coverage of the report, The Economist raised an interesting point from the findings, that entrepreneurial Australians are far more likely to start up businesses than many other nations.

On one level this isn’t suprising as starting a business in Australia is easy compared to many other countries with the World Bank’s Doing Business survey rating the country second after New Zealand for the ease of setting up an enterprise.

Interestingly though, the number of Australians setting up their own businesses is falling reports Smart Company, citing the Productivity Commission’s Forms of Work in Australia report.

The Productivity Commission speculates this might be because the mining boom is encouraging workers to take resource contracts rather than set up their own businesses.

No doubt there’s some truth there, as much of the nation’s investment has been directed into the mines and associated infrastructure in recent years however there’s probably some more mundane reasons.

Top of the list would be the nation’s property obsession; it’s difficult to service a massive mortgage while running your own business.

Fifty years of mainly increasing property prices has groomed Australians into believing that having a steady job and a brace of investment properties is a much easier path to success than taking a risk with your own business.

Added to that is the increasing hostility towards businesses. As the nanny state grows, regulations that make it harder for business multiply, the latest example being a Sydney council that wants to charge professional dog walkers for using parks.

Overwhelmingly these petty regulations hurt those starting new businesses rather than bigger corporations.

The good news though is that people still want to start their own businesses. In an economy that’s increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, diversification is critical.

In a world that’s becoming increasing automated, we need smart startups finding ways to use the new tools and create the jobs to run them. If Australia can get its policy mix right, kick the property and nanny state addictions then it might open some great opportunities.

Taxing the internet

US laws making online retailers levy state taxes are going to spread internationally as lawmakers look at closing loopholes.

One of the competitive advantages for online shopping has been the difficulty in levying taxes on internet transactions.

This has been particularly true in the United States where individual states, counties and cities have different sales taxes, meaning a consumer in Birmingham, Alabama might pay 10% more than their friends in Billings, Montana.

Amazon in particular has been aggressive in exploiting these price differentials, right down to threatening states where ‘Amazon taxes’ has been proposed.

Now the US Congress looks set to pass a law which would make online sellers responsible for buyers’ state sales tax obligations.

The next stage will be treaties between countries on the collection of sales or value added taxes.

For many retailers though this won’t be particularly good news as price differentials are more than just the 10% GST or VAT and online shopping sites compete as much on product range and customers service.

What the US Congress’ bill really shows is how online retailing is maturing – rather than thinking of companies like Amazon, eBay or niche operators like Shoes Of Prey as being disrupters they are the new normal.