This paper explores a unique new source of social valuation: a market for bodies. The internet hosts a number of large synthetic worlds which users can visit by piloting a computer-generated body, known as an avatar. Avatars can have an asset value, in that users can spend time to increase their...

Digital products have the property that they can be copied almost costlessly. This makes them candidates for non-commercial copying by final consumers. Because the copy of a copy typically does not deteriorate in quality, copying products can become a wide-spread phenomenon - this can be...

OBJECTIVE: This article examines whether there are differences in men's and women's use of the Internet and whether any such gender gaps have changed in recent years. METHODS: We use data from several surveys during the period 1997 to 2001 to show trends in Internet usage and to estimate...

This paper aims to analyze the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the development of the software industry in these countries. The study is centred on software production and IT-related services - software development, chip design and electronic devices design, computer and Internet...

The quest for security entails agency relationships, whether protecting ourselves from the rogues and vandals of the Internet, or protecting our personal information in the hands of commercial actors. Firms that provide the technology to provide network security generally do so without...

This paper aims at investigating the process of involvement in open online communities producing knowledge, via the link between the first contribution and the level of contribution reached. While most studies look at the career of contribution after the first contribution, we focus on what...

The European Directive on common rules for the internal market in electricity (2009/72/EC) requires all member states to 'ensure the implementation of intelligent metering systems' in order to foster a more active involvement of customers in the electricity market. Such intelligent metering...

In the U.S. paying for priority arrangements between Internet access service providers and Internet application providers to favor some traffic over other traffic is considered unreasonable discrimination. In Europe the focus is on minimum traffic quality requirements. It can be shown that...