Enron Assets Sold in Webcast
Enron equipment went up for sale last week.
The once-mighty energy trading company, which collapsed and filed for bankruptcy following a high-profile accounting scandal, had many of its assets sold during a two-day auction last week by Dovebid.com, an online auction house known for selling the remains of tech companies that have crashed.
Among the items listed for sale from Enron—which owes creditors about $50 billion— included Sun and Hewlett-Packard servers; Cisco routers; laptop computers and flat-panel monitors from IBM, Compaq and others; artwork; and ergonomic Herman Miller Aeron chairs. The auction was conducted via Webcast from Enrons Houston warehouse.
Liberty Elects New President
The Liberty Alliance Project has a new president.
Michael Barrett, vice president for Internet strategy at American Express, last week was elected head of the board of the alliance, a collaborative venture of companies that released a specification for a single-sign-on identity management scheme to enable users to move freely among various Web sites without needing to re-enter their user names and passwords at each stop.
Barrett replaces Eric Dean, who resigned earlier this month, citing a shortage of time resulting from problems facing his employer, United Airlines. Dean is CIO at the airline.
According to the alliance, which now has more than 120 members, Barretts term will run through December 2003.
Amazon, States Agree on Privacy
Personal consumer information held by Amazon.com is now safer. According to an agreement reached last week between the e-tailer and a group of state attorneys general, Amazon.com has changed its online privacy policy to provide more protection for the personal data it collects and will provide examples of what information is collected and how it is used.
Amazon.com also agreed not to sell its customer database to marketers. It will implement the policy changes over the next few weeks.