Microsoft's Net integration is so far confined to Word 95. The largest financial institutions in the world have invested tens of billions of dollars in a distribution method that may not be relevant five years from now, according to Colin Davies of Andersen Consulting Canada. Tiny Toronto-based Bayshore Trust, which opened for business on the Internet on October 24, typifies a departure from alternative distribution systems which until recently were limited to telephone banking subsidiaries, such as those created by Huntington Bancshares in the U.S., Midland Bank in Britain, and Banque Paribas in France. Bankers may be currently backing away from online systems because they are not sure which horse to back - the Internet, the Microsoft network, proprietary networks of phone companies, or some other technology like wireless transmission. At the start of the two-day Interpol conference in London on crime against children, Detective Chief Inspector Bryan Drew of the National Criminal Intelligence Service said that international paedophile rings and child pornographers are using coding techniques like PGP to make secret contact via the Internet and to send pornographic material.
Police are also concerned about the use of the anonymous remailing service in Finland.
No one in Britain has as yet decided on a policy against the use of the Internet for such purposes. Conde Nast has a similar service in the U.S. called Conde Net. The U.S. market for electronic publishing has developed much more quickly than in Europe. Conde Nast's entry into the British market is seen as trend-setting. Japan may be generally thought of as a leader in information technology, but it is lagging far behind when it comes to diffusion and use of the Internet.