2001 - 2005

This page of the timeline covers -

• 2001
• 2002
• 2003
• 2004
• 2005

     2001

EU Directive on Copyright & Related Rights In The Information Society

Elsevier swallows Harcourt General

merger of Chase Manhattan and J P Morgan

Chevron buys Texaco for US$46bn

WorldCom merges with with Intermedia Communications

Andersen Consulting becomes Accenture

over 20 million subscribers on DoCoMo's i-mode network

Berlusconi becomes Italy's Prime Minister again

Hewlett-Packard buys Compaq for US$2bn

C&W America buys Exodus Communications for US$800m

merger of BHP and Billiton

Commonwealth Interactive Gambling Act 2001 in Australia

Deutsche Telekom buys VoiceStream and PowerTel

Tiscali buys Planet Interkom and SurfEu (Germany), Springboard (UK) and 70% of Excite Italia

Corbis buys Second Line Search

Bill Gates listed as world's richest man

AOL subscribers reach 29 million worldwide

Napster ordered by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block copyrighted music

Polaroid goes into Chapter 11

Apple releases iPod

TelstraSaturn buys Clear to form TelstraClear New Zealand

     2002

EU Directive on Privacy & Electronic Communications

Yahoo buys HotJobs job board for US$436m

Kirch goes into receivership

Sarbanes-Oxley Act in US

Vivendi starts unbundling

WorldCom seeks for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, listing US$107bn assets and US$41bn debt

IBM buys PwC Consulting for US$3.5bn

IBM buys Rational Software for US$2.1bn

WC3 releases User Agent Accessibility Guidelines

Yahoo! buys Inktomi

Venture Capital Act 2002 in Australia

Citigroup spins off Travelers

Sears buys Lands End for US$1.9bn

54% of Australian households have cordless phones?

Italian government sells stake in Telecom Italia

     2003

News Corp buys Hughes Electronics (DirectTV)

News sells INL stake to Fairfax

Grundig goes into receivership

CIPA declared constitutional in US

Lawrence v Texas decision by US Supreme Court

Softbank sells Aozora Bank stake

US 'Truth In Domains' Act ('PROTECT Act')

'AOL' removed from name of AOL Time Warner

LookSmart dropped by MSN

Google buys Blogger

VeriSign SiteFinder controversy

Granada merges with Carlton

EMC buys Legato for US$1.3bn

GE buys Instrumentarium and Amersham for US$9.5bn

VeriSign sells 85% of registrar arm to Pivotal Private Equity for US$100m

Yahoo! buys Overture

Telstra buys IP1 Australia

Penthouse goes bust

Enron goes into Chapter 11

BT reenters mobile phone market in UK

22% of Russian population has mobile phone subscription

Spam Act 2003 in Australia

number of internet subscribers in Australia reaches over 5.2m

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 in US

EMC buys Documentum for US$1.7bn

152m personal computers sold across globe

Red Hat buys Sistina Software

World Summit on the Information Society

EMC buys VMware for US$635m

UK government pledges to have all citizens online by 2008

FedEx buys Kinko's for US$2.4bn

32m cars in UK, 29m in France, 47m in Germany, 38m in Italy, 25m in Spain, 137m in US, 10m in Australia

Bank of America buys FleetBoston Financial for US$48bn

US federal Fair & Accurate Credit Transactions Act 2003

     2004

Conrad Black exits from Hollinger

Australia-US Free Trade Agreement

Comcast bids for Disney

Cingular buys AT&T Wireless

Enron sells CrossCountry Energy to Southern Union and GE for U$2.4bn

controversy over 2003 proposals by Telstra to buy Fairfax or Nine Network and Telstra's anti-competitive conduct in broadband market

Hostway Corporation acquires responsibility for operation of dot-pro TLD from Register.com

NOIE replaced by Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and Office of Information Economy

CNET Networks buys EDventure Holdings

Alcatel sells mobile phone operations to China's TCL Communication

Microsoft pays Sun over US$1.95bn to settle lawsuits and patent disputes

Telstra pays $636m for Trading Post classified ads publications

end of coalmining in France

Kabel Deutschland GmbH buys Ish, KabelBW and iesy for US$3.3bn

AOL pays US$435m for Advertising.com

TARBS goes into receivership

UK Office of the e-Envoy replaced by Cabinet Office e-government unit

Intelsat agrees to US$5bn takeover

DMGT sells Australian regional network

Telstra buys Damovo

collapse of Comindico

US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004 in Australia extends copyright protection to life plus 70 years model

Deutsche Telekom buys public stake in T-Online internet subsidiary (spun off in 2000)

release of Firefox 1.0

IBM sells personal computer division to Lenovo

global revenue from mobile phones greater than from fixed-line phones

Sprint and Nextel in US announce US$72bn merger

Oracle acquires PeopleSoft for US$10.3bn

Symantec buys Veritas in US$13.5bn deal

online advertising in UK (£653.3m) overtakes commercial radio advertising (£637.4m)

Washington Post group buys Microsoft's Slate

     2005

Corbis buys Zefa image licensing group for US$96m

AT&T agrees to US$16bn takeover by SBC Communications

Verizon buys MCI for US$6.7bn

New York Times buys About.com from Primedia for US$410m

IBM pays US$1.1bn for Ascential

IAC/InterActiveCorp buys Ask Jeeves for US$1.9bn

Yahoo! buys Flickr.com

ChevronTexaco buys Unocal for US$18.2bn

Adobe buys Macromedia for US$3.4bn




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