Saudi Prince To Double Stake in AOL (old news, new significance)

Old news, I know, but I just had it pointed out to me. If I remember correctly, this is the same guy who had his checkreturned to him by Giuliani. Now he owns a chunk of CNN.

Who else owns part of CNN? The New York Times? Gannet? Is this a job for the Guild?

Yep. They make money off us selling oil. Then they turn around and use their profits to invest in our economy.

And they still pssss on us. Darn Arabs!!!!

These towelheads are always whining about Jewish control of our media. There are a few which are learning they can play the game too instead of investing their money in Cadallics and concubines, mosques and madrassas to breed more terrorists.

Still, I wouldn't look for one to make a big donation to FreeRepublic anytime soon.

According to the Sept 26th issue of Forbes it says that his stake is around $932M now, I suspect the dot com turndown reduced this previous $2B stake. Wow, he has $9.65 BILLION in Citicorp and $1.1 BILLION in News Corp.

I am really sorry .I didn't know an arab was part owner of AOL .Looks like I'm off to look for another I.S.P.

I am headed for RoadRunner cable internet, I figure the few extra dollars will be made up for in the reduction of phone fees.

Companies Compete to Provide Saudi
Internet Veil

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

                 Nearly a dozen software companies,
                  most of them American, are competing
              for a contract to help Saudi Arabia block
              access to Web sites the Saudi government
              deems inappropriate for that nation's half-
              million Internet users.

              For the companies, the Saudi account would
              be important not only for the direct revenue
              — which analysts say could be worth several
              million dollars — but also for its value as a
              flagship that could help win similar contracts
              from other governments.

              Pornographic sites, the biggest Internet
              business in other countries, make up the
              overwhelming majority of the sites blocked in
              Saudi Arabia, distantly followed by sites that
              may be sensitive for political or religious
              reasons.

              To critics of the sale of content filters,
              software company executives say that they
              are only providing politically neutral tools.
              "Once we sell them the product, we can't
              enforce how they use it," said Matthew Holt,
              a sales executive for Secure Computing
              (news/quote), of San Jose, Calif., that
              currently provides Internet-filtering software
              to the Saudi government under a contract that
              expires in 2003.

              Secure Computing hopes to renew that
              contract but has competition from at least 10
              other companies from the United States,
              Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

              "This would be a terrific deal to win — an
              important deal to win," said Geoff Haggart, a
              vice president at Websense (news/quote), a
              San Diego company that has begun a
              software trial with the Saudi government and
              is considered a top contender for its contact.

              Websense's current clients include more than
              half of the Fortune 500 companies, the United
              States Army and Saudi Aramco, the large
              Saudi oil company. Other software that Saudi
              Arabia has considered includes products from
              Surf Control, a London company; N2H2, of
              Seattle; and Symantec, a Cupertino, Calif.,
              company.

              Within the Islamic world, religious sensitivities and security-conscious regimes
              can combine to create a technophobic atmosphere. Governments in Muslim
              nations, among them Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, have made
              overtures to Internet filtering companies. But no Muslim nation has been as
              active a user of the software as has Saudi Arabia. By royal decree, virtually all
              public Internet traffic to and from Saudi Arabia has been funneled through a
              single control center outside Riyadh since the Internet was introduced in the
              kingdom nearly three years ago.

If the Riyadh center blocks a site, a warning screen pops up warning the user,
in English and Arabic, "Access to the requested URL is not allowed!"

              "The Internet is a frightening place to some people," said Mr. Holt, who
              oversees sales operations in the Middle East for Secure Computing. "The
              government feels the need to intervene."

              In Saudi Arabia, the government spent two years designing a centralized
              control system before gingerly opening the spigot to the Internet in February
              1999. At the time, the government selected Secure Computing's SmartFilter
              software from four competing products from the United States, in part
              because the company offered a discount. The company and Saudi officials
              declined to disclose the contract terms.

              SmartFilter came with ready-made categories like pornography and gambling
              and was customized to include specific sites the Saudis perceived as defaming
              Islam or the royal family.

              With the Secure Computing contract set to expire in little more than a year,
              rivals are actively courting Saudi technology officials. The companies are
              promoting their expanded Arabic-language capabilities. They are selling their
              ease of customization for sites considered anti-Islam or anti-royal family. They
              are donating engineers to support trials, while steeply discounting their list
              prices. One German company even offered the service for free, according to
              an executive involved in the competition.

              Corporate customers and the United States Army generally use filtering
              software to prevent their users from viewing pornography, gambling or
              otherwise frittering away time on the job. But Saudi Arabia is one of the
              countries with the most centralized control of Internet content of various types,
              according to a report by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.

              Another country highlighted in the report is China, whose government blocks
              various foreign media and human rights Web sites by using domestic software.
              The United States government recently introduced a plan to establish a
              computer network to help Chinese residents circumvent their government's fire
              wall. But so far, Washington has not taken similar steps in Saudi Arabia, which
              brooks little political dissent but is one of the United States' closest allies
              among Middle Eastern Muslim nations.

              "We have a really serious problem in terms of the American free speech idea,"
              said Jack Balkin, a professor at the Yale Law School who studies the politics
              of Internet filtering. "But it is very American to make money. Between
              anticensorship and the desire to make money, the desire to make money will
              win out."

              Saudi security agencies identify the political Web sites that are considered for
              inclusion on the blacklist. Among the banned sites are the Committee for the
              Defense of Human Rights in the Arabian Peninsula (www.cdrhap.com) and
              the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (www.islah.org). Even some less
              politically charged sites, including ones that recount the history of Saudi Arabia,
              are blocked.

              In response to Internet filtering, many Saudis either dial up foreign Internet
              service providers, use Web sites that protect the user's identity or engage in a
              cat-and-mouse game with Web sites that frequently change their addresses to
              elude filters. (For such sites, like the one operated by Islah.org, would-be
              visitors send e-mail to a fixed address and receive the new Web address.)

              It is because filtering for an entire country is a logistically tricky task that the
              Saudi government is looking for new software. "It's not that we are unhappy
              with the product, we're just looking for a better solution," said Eyas S.
              al-Hajery, who plays a major role in the selection process and has evaluated
              various software filters.

              The competition is up in the air, said Dr. Hajery, who directs the Information
              Security Center at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, the
              institution that serves as Saudi Arabia's Internet control valve. "We are very
              open to try other choices," he said.

              The marketing pitches pour in weekly through e-mails, phone calls and
              in-person presentations. But the decision will have less to do with marketing
              than customer service after the sale, Dr. Hajery said.

              Customer service is important because Saudi Arabia's filtering effort is so
              large in scope and so highly customized. The Saudi Internet staff says it tries
              to be reasonable within the guidelines, and it provides Web forms for users to
              request additions or removals from the blacklists.

              Dr. Hajery says his staff of a dozen employees receives more than 500
              suggestions a day from the public to block sites that the authorities have
              missed. The requests are reviewed by the staff and about half of them are
              ultimately added to the blacklist — up to 7,000 URL's monthly. Many of the
              sites forbidden on religious grounds are gleaned through this process, since the
              staff members are primarily focused on ferreting out pornography sites, Dr.
              Hajery said. The center also receives more than 100 requests a day to remove
              specific sites from the blacklist — many because they have been wrongfully
              characterized by the SmartFilter software, he said.

Secure Computing disputes this, saying that all of its sites are reviewed by
people after being screened by the software.

              Some sites become incidental victims to the government's broad snare. In
              August 2000, the Saudi government decided to block access to all Yahoo
              (news/quote) online clubs because many clubs were popular for pornography.
              After the move elicited protest from people who use various Yahoo clubs to
              communicate about everything from engineering to cooking, the center began
              selectively unblocking nonpornographic Yahoo sites at users' requests.

              Many Saudis support the government's ban on pornography. But sites banned
              for political reasons incite protests. A 28-year- old claims assistant at Royal
              and SunAlliance Insurance, who is a member of the Shiite minority in Saudi
              Arabia, where the majority of Muslims are Sunni, said in an e- mail interview
              that a Web site containing basic information about his village near the town of
              Qatif had been blocked.

He compared Internet filtering to the Saudi national emblem, two crossed
swords below a date palm.

              "You can look straight and eat from that palm tree as much as you want," he
              said, "but if you ever try to look to your right or left side, there'll be a sword
              waiting to chop off your head."

In Nov of 2000, AOL was trading at around $50. It is now trading under $40. He's down about 20% in his last Billion into AOL at this moment... and who knows how much he paid per share on his first Billion...

There are christian, american-born Arabs.

this genius reminds me of the hunt brothers in the silver fiasco of 1980 (5 to 50 back to 5), except he didn't get in on as much of the upside mania

his $300 mill is now worth $66 mill (amzn 59 to 9, ebay 135 to 120 [2:1 split adjusted], dclk 60 to 9, insp 60 to 2, icge 35 to 1, pcln 54 to 4), 3 of 6 down 93% or more, 5 of 6 down 85% or more

his $2.05 billion in aol is now worth $1.4 billion (54 to 37)

his $5.8 billion in c is now worth $5.5 billion (51.7 to 49)

oops, there went $1.084 billion, not good, but not too big a deal on 8 billion, problem is the other half of his stuff is probably in equally bad shape, perhaps worse

so the rest of the bedouins are probably wondering when they're gonna see their 2 billion again and he's giving them a lot of happy talk

what he and they don't know is that the devastation they suffered in the internet garbage is going to be repeated across the board, i'll guess he'll be off all of the richest lists by 2005

too bad we won't have the pleasure of watching this pampered little weasel begging for his 10 mill back from nyc

**I am headed for RoadRunner cable internet, I figure the few extra dollars will be made up for in the reduction of phone fees.**

I hope you don't do this as a means of punishing AOL. They bought out Time Warner which owns Roadrunner so it would be like trying to punish General Motors by selling your Chevy and buying a new Buick.

Incidentally, the stock has lost almost half it's value since last June so the Prince isn't exactly making hay on this deal. There's also a lot of foolish investors who either believe their AOL stock is still based primarily on the internet business or those who think it's just Time Magazine and Warner Brothers. AOL-Time Warner has their tenticles in practically every part of the telecommunications media - from internet service to films, music, cable tv, software, books, magazines and all cobranding off one another. If they collapse, the rest of those industries are in deep trouble. In that sense, the Prince is right. It's not going away anytime soon.

Damn, I guess I knew deep down it couldn't be that easy. At least I can screw the phone company though! Can't I?

Depends on which one. If you're mad at your local company, a cable modem will provide some satisfaction. If it's your long distance carrier (particularly AT&T) note that the internet trunk lines used to backbone the ISP flows through trunks most often owned by AT&T or MCI Worldcom - so they are still indirectly getting your business.

Double Damn!!

I'm an AT&T customer so they got me again!

I guess it's just BOHICA all around!!