Research by The Welsh consumer council found that despite an increase in online shopping in Wales, concerns about Internet security and credit card fraud were the major deterrents to online shopping. Of those questioned who said they did buy online, 66% did not feel they knew their consumer rights.

The Welsh Consumer Council advised that information about consumer rights and internet security should be provided in schools and colleges within existing internet education programmes.

The report’s author, Sarah Richards said: “Despite people’s fears over the authenticity of shopping websites, online shoppers are covered by more consumer regulations than are people who shop on the high street.

“Online purchases are also covered by a seven day ‘cooling off’ period which is set out under distance-selling regulations.
“However, consumer confidence is closely linked with perceptions of internet security and online confidence. In reality it can be difficult to get redress if things go wrong because of the ethereal nature of the internet.”

According to the report, information on consumer rights and shopping security was often lengthy and difficult to understand.

It suggested that websites should give clear, concise information on internet security and display trustmarks to reassure consumers.

Payment card fraud increased in the UK during 2004 due to an increase in organised crime. Ms Richards stressed the importance of using a transaction page with a secure browser, which is identified by an unbroken key or padlock. As long as a secure server is used all credit card transactions are protected by the Consumer Credit Act.

China and the European Union are scheduled to begin discussions on Chinese textiles, in Beijing on Tuesday. The talks aim to find a solution for Chinese textile products that have been detained at EU ports because EU quota limits have been filled.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said: “We now need a pragmatic solution that deals with the immediate overshoot, and with good will on all sides, we can do this”.

Several products have now reached their EU quota limits, including T-shirts, bras, sweaters and men’s trousers. This is causing concern among European retailers, that they will be unable to re-stock their shops if the Chinese supplied stock is not released from customs warehouses.

The EU quotas are also causing problems for China’s clothing manufacturers. Manufacturers have been switching production from clothing that has reached its quota limits to garments that have not. However, as more products have begun to reach quota limits, Chinese producers have started to lay off staff.

There has been a rapid increase in the amount of clothing China is selling to Europe. In the first half of 2005 it sold $8bn-worth, almost the same amount as in all of 2004.

Although this is damaging European manufacturers, EU negotiators may have to concede some restrictions, perhaps by bringing forward some of next year’s quota allowance, in order to address the concerns of European retailers and shoppers.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has warned that people who contracted out of the state second pension (S2P) and paid money into a personal scheme, may receive a pension on average £4 a week smaller than those who stayed put.

Three million people have chosen to opt out of S2P, or its predecessor SERPS, and pay cash into their personal pension instead. Financial advisers widely promoted opting out as a way of increasing retirement wealth, but concern has been growing that this advice was wrong.

Last year, insurance company Norwich Union advised its pension savers to opt back into the S2P scheme.

The FSA investigation found that the effects of opting out depended on when individuals had opted out, how long they were contracted out for, their age, and the performance and charges of the personal pension scheme they then chose.

According to the FSA, people who contracted out in 1988, the first year that this was possible, can now expect a pension on average £4 smaller than if they had chosen to remain in SERPS. SERPS became the S2P in 2002.

However, people who contracted out for a five year period and then opted back in would on average be approximately £2 a week worse off.

The FSA will investigate if mis-selling has occurred, but said that relatively few complaints about mis-selling had been made to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Google is updating its desktop search software with the facility to suggest web links, personal documents, blog entries and images relevant to the user’s current activity on their computer. These can be instantly displayed in an on-screen panel.

The updated software includes applications that expand the abilities of the panel. It can automatically subscribe to RSS feeds on weblogs and news sites so a user receives regular updates and can monitor different e-mail accounts and display incoming messages as they appear. Users can create a list of most-used documents and files so they can open them as soon as they are needed.

Some of the functions, including the ability to present information about local documents as a user types, are already available in programs such as Blinkx. Yahoo’s desktop search system and Apple’s Spotlight also display real time results.

Other functions, such as the ability to access frequently used files and newly arrived e-mail messages, places Google into more direct competition with Microsoft, as the search engine directly replaces some of the features of the Windows operating system.

Google and other companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Ask Jeeves, have been promoting desktop and toolbar search software for the past year, as they compete for market share. According to audience monitoring company, ComScore Media Metrix, Yahoo’s toolbar was used to carry out the most US searches in July 2005, while the most browser searches were carried out via Google.

The new test version of Google desktop is available to download and works with Windows XP and 2000.

Talks between Toshiba and Sony, about bringing together rival DVD technologies, have broken down.

The Japanese Daily Yomiuri newspaper reported that the two companies now plan to go ahead with their own formats. Toshiba, with NEC and Sanyo, is promoting HD-DVD, while Sony, with support from Dell and Samsung, favours Blu-ray technology.

The next generation of DVDs are scheduled to go on sale later this year. They will provide significantly greater data storage and will include high-definition video, providing 3D-like quality pictures.

The rivalry between HD-DVD and Blu-ray mirrors the battle between VHS and Betamax, which resulted in the demise of Betamax. It had been hoped to avoid and similar conflict between the next generation DVD formats.

However, although both sides are willing to re-open negotiations if an opportunity arises, Toshiba now plans to launch its first HD-DVD products by the end of this year, with software production commencing by the end of this month.

Sony plans to include a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation 3 game console next year.

Blu-ray discs can store 50GB of high-quality data, while Toshiba’s HD-DVD can hold 30GB. Both disc formats offer much better quality audio and video, and could provide more space for interactive elements.

A three-year survey by Sirota Survey Intelligence, of staff at firms such as Shell, Tesco, Microsoft and Dell, found that most workers consider their managers to be excessively bureaucratic, inconsistent in decision-making and likely to apportion blame wrongly.

The report found that the belief that managers hamper staff is deeply ingrained. Workers said that would like to know what is expected of them and have competent bosses and better cooperation across the firm.

According to Sirota Survey Intelligence, the biggest challenge for many companies is creating an enthusiastic workforce, which is considered a key element of a successful organisation.

Dr David Sirota, Chairman of Sirota Survey Intelligence said that workers “often find conditions that block high performance, such as excessive bureaucracy burying them in paperwork, and slowing decision making to a crawl”. “Management has to help employees perform, which in many cases means getting out of the way.”

While researching spyware infections, security firm Sunbelt Software say they have discovered a US-based server storing data stolen from compromised computers.

The server held passwords for online accounts from 50 banks, log-in details for Ebay and Paypal, credit card numbers and vast amounts of personal data. It is reported that the FBI has launched an investigation into the scam.

The data is thought to have been stole by a variant of a family of trojans known as Dumaru or Nibu that exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

The trojan automatically downloaded itself on computers when people visited sites containing the program. It included a ‘keylogger’ that copies everything a user types. The variant was particularly effective because it was able to copy text stored on the clipboard and by Internet Explorer, according to Eric Sites, vice president of research and development at Sunbelt Software.

The trojan exploited Internet Explorer’s AutoComplete feature, which automatically fills-in boxes on web forms where people enter names, addresses, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers and other biographical details.

According to Mr Sites, a keylogger usually produces a file containing an unbroken string of characters, making it very difficult to use. By contrast, AutoComplete data is already labelled and sorted because the browser has to know where to put each item.

Sunbelt has contacted some of the people identified in the files to tell them of the identity theft. Banks, credit card firms, Ebay and Paypal have also been notified of the compromised accounts.

Sunbelt believes the trojan has been circulating for approximately three weeks.

Aerospace company Rolls-Royce has secured a £1.3bn contract to develop engines for the next generation of US stealth fighters. The company will collaborate with US peer General Electric for the US government contract that is expected to run until 2013.

The deal will be welcomed by the 200 workers who have been involved in early development work on the F136 engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The news of the contract coincides with the first official strike at Rolls-Royce for 20 years. Workers at the company’s Bristol plant walked out following the dismissal of union official, Jerry Hicks, over misconduct claims. An employment tribunal provisionally found he had “probably been dismissed on trade union grounds”.

The stealth contract is the second involving Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Pratt & Whitney secured development work on an F135 engine for the plane. Pratt & Whitney engines will power the F-35 until 2012. GE Aircraft Engines and Rolls-Royce will then compete with Pratt & Whitney for engine placement contracts.

F-35 production is expected to total 6,000 over the next 30 years and include a long-term replacement for the UK’s Harrier and Sea Harrier.

The project, which also involves BAE Systems, will be led by Lockheed Martin. It will replace several aircraft including the F-16 and F/A-18. A prototype of the plane has been produced and the first jets will go into service in two year’s time.

GE holds a 60% stake in the programme and Rolls-Royce will also carry out work on the contract at GE’s plant in Indianapolis.

From September 2006 the size and shape of letters and parcels will affect the cost of posting them, as well as their weight.

Industry regulator Postcommm has approved Royal Mail’s plan to charge a higher rate for light but large items, and a lower rate for some heavier items.

Lorna Clarkson, Royal Mail’s director of commercial policy and pricing, said: “This new system will be fairer for customers, as well as more accurately reflecting the costs to our business.”

Lightweight but bulky mail costs more to transport, sort, handle and deliver than smaller items.

Post offices will be provided with templates for customers to measure their mail to find the cost.

It is anticipated that 30% of business post will be affected by the pricing change and 20% of residential mail. Half is expected to cost more and half less, but Royal Mail’s overall revenue is expected to remain stable.

From September 2006, first-class postage for a large letter weighing 750g and less than 25mm thick will fall from £2.71 to £1.23. However, a large greetings card weighing less than 60 grams, which currently costs 30p to send first class, will cost 42p to post.

Postcomm chairman Nigel Stapleton said the new pricing plan would “promote the development of a successful and growing postal market”. He said this was important in view of the end of the Royal Mail’s monopoly on letter deliver in January 2006, when the postal market will be liberalised.

The price strategy had been proposed for April 2006, but was delayed to give customers time to prepare.

Industry regulator Ofcom is planning to introduce new limits to the price BT can charge other providers to carry calls and dial-up internet between the telephone exchanges it owns. BT is one of several companies that give landline providers access to infrastructure that routes their calls.

Ofcom expects that together with effective competition in the sector, the price savings could be effective by 2008. Ofcom hopes that telephone providers will pass the savings, which could be between £350m and £400m, onto both private and business customers.

Ofcom said the change recognised the continuing growth of competition in the landline telephone marketplace.

The plan is part of Ofcom’s ongoing strategic review of telephone communications, which aims to increase competition in the sector. The new network charge controls will come into effect for four years from October 2005.

Hacker groups are competing to produce malicious programmes that exploit a recently discovered loophole in Windows 2000. Some of the variants seek out and delete rival viruses they find on machines they manage to infect.

A patch for the Windows 2000 loophole was released on 9 August and malicious programmes designed to exploit it appeared a few days later. The vulnerability occurs in the Plug-and-Play component of Windows 2000 and also affects PCs running Windows XP, unless users have installed a security update. The flaw can also be fixed by a patch for Windows 2000.

Several major organisations, including the Financial Times, Caterpillar, ABC News and CNN, were attacked by the viruses earlier this week.

Despite Windows 2000 being the most prevalent version of the operating system used in large organisations, the number of firms infected was relatively low, according to Microsoft.

The company has released a free tool to automatically remove the Zotob worm and its variants from infected PCs. However, security firms Clearswift and F-Secure have identified newer versions of the viruses that try to destroy bugs from rival groups.

“There appears to be three different virus-writing gangs turning out new worms at an alarming rate,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, “as if they were competing to build the biggest network of infected machines.”

Microsoft advised users to turn on auto-updates and make sure anti-virus and other security programs were up to date.

In a statement, Microsoft said the reported worms are variants of an existing worm called Zotob.

A study by the University of Massachusetts found that working long hours greatly increases the risk of injury or illness.

Workers who did overtime were 61% more likely to fall ill or suffer injury, once factors such as age and gender were taken into account. Working over 12 hours a day increased the risk by over a third, while a 60-hour week increased the risk by 23%.

The study looked at US records from 110,236 employment periods between 1987 and 2000. An employment period relates to the time a person spent at one firm. Counting this way meant some individuals might have featured in the research more than once.

According to report co-author Allard Dembe, the risk was not necessarily associated with how hazardous the job was. The findings suggested that long working hours indirectly contribute to workplace accidents through factors such as inducing fatigue or stress in affected workers.

The findings, which are published in the Occupational and Environmental Health journal, supported the 48-hour European Working Time Directive and other initiatives to reduce the number of working hours.

The study identified 5,139 work-related injuries and illnesses, over half of which occurred in jobs with extended working hours or overtime.

The researchers concluded that the more hours worked, the greater the risk of injury.

In the UK 14% of the working population, or 3.6 million people, work longer than 48 hours a week.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) suggests that websites providing prospective house buyers with data on neighbourhood income levels and ethnicity, could increase segregation between poorer and more affluent neighbourhoods.

According to the charity, similar sites in the US had led to people on high incomes increasingly living in the same area, causing a fall in social cohesion.

Information available to UK househunters about neighbourhood characteristics is generally more limited than the information given on US property sites. In the US it is possible to search for the average income of a neighbourhood and see how ethnically diverse an area is. Similar information is now becoming more widely available in the UK on a postcode rather than neighbourhood basis. House buyers can check local crime rates and the performance of neighbourhood schools.

The JRF said that there was a danger that wealthy people would only choose to live in areas with other wealthy people. One social science theory is that having a mix of rich and poor in a neighbourhood will raises the living standards of the poorest people in the area.

Professor Roger Burrows, who led the JRF research team from the Universities of York and Durham, said: “While no one would want to prevent public access to neighbourhood information, we should recognise the potential implications for disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the people who live in them”.

The number of people out of work and claiming benefits in the UK (claimant count unemployment) increased for the sixth consecutive month in July, by 2,800 to 866,000, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is the longest series of rises for 3 years.

ILO unemployment, which includes those not on benefits, increased 27,000 to 1.42 million in the three months to the end of June, raising the ILO unemployment rate to 4.7%. The rise in unemployment had mainly affected women.

Despite July’s rise however, the rate of claimant count unemployment remained stable at 2.8%, maintaining the UK’s position as a country with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world.

The number of people in work fell by 16,000 to 28.59 million during the same period.

The figures were adversely affected by the failure of several major companies and job reduction strategies by manufacturing firms such as Rolls Royce and Marconi. Employment in the manufacturing sector continued to fall, to 3.2 million during the quarter, representing the loss of 86,000 jobs since the same time last year.

Overall wage growth improved, however, with average earnings up 0.1% in June from a month earlier – an increase of 4.2% on the year.

Alan Clarke, UK economist at BNP Paribas said: “The rise in unemployment over the last six months in combination with stagnant retail sales and shrinking manufacturing production shows that the Monetary Policy Committee was right to cut interest rates”.

According to Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) minutes, the Bank of England’s decision to reduce interest rates to 4.5% was finely balanced. Members of the committee voted by just five to four to cut rates by a quarter percentage point.

Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England opposed the cut and those who voted for a reduction felt the move could be reversed if needed in future.

According to the minutes, Mr King and fellow members Rachel Lomax, Andrew Large and Paul Tucker believed it was too early to be confident that inflationary pressures had eased. This viewpoint is supported by inflation data from the Office for National Statistics showing that inflation rose 0.3% between June and July to 2.3% due to a rapid increase in oil prices. The increase took the rate above the government’s 2% target.

Mr King decision to oppose the cut meant that he was in a minority at the MPC for the first time in its eight-year history.

Bank of England chief economist Charles Bean and other MPC members argued that a cut was needed to increase consumer confidence and to reduce the possibility of an even larger reduction being needed at a later date.

High Street retailers have expressed concern that consumer spending is slowing. Sales in the three months to June grew at their slowest rate since February 1999.

Philip Shaw, analyst at Investec said: “In practical terms this means rates are on hold for quite some time until the economic data decisively point in favour of another interest rate cut”.

The Xbox 360 games console will cost £209 when it goes on sale at Christmas. Microsoft announced the price of its next generation console at the German Games Convention in Leipzig. A more expensive version costing $399 (£279) will also be available. This will include a 20GB hard drive, wireless controller, headset and remote control.

Microsoft hopes to launch the Xbox 360 before rival Sony launches the PlayStation 3 in the spring. The Revoloution, Nintendo’s next generation console, is also expected to be launched in 2006.

Microsoft’s head of home and entertainment in Europe, Chris Lewis, also announced the pricing for Europe and the US. The basic Xbox 360, known as the Core System, will retail for $299 in the US and 299 euros in Europe, while the fully-accessorized version will sell for $399 and 399 euros.

The pricing for the key games market of Japan will be announced at the Tokyo games fair next month.

Peter Moore, Xbox marketing chief at Microsoft said: “With both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox 360 Core System, we’re offering consumers real choice and real value”.

Microsoft hopes an early lead will help it dominate the next generation of consoles. It was a year behind Sony’s PlayStation 2 in launching the original Xbox and was unable to make up the time in sales.

Nominet, the organisation which controls .uk domain names, says that over 150 web addresses ending in .uk are created every hour, daily.

Separate research for Nominet also showed that 47% of web users are more confident dealing online with companies that have a .uk address.

Lesley Cowley, Nominet’s chief executive said: “The combination of greater broadband take-up and the established popularity of .uk domain names demonstrates that the UK internet industry is more buoyant than ever.”

The majority of web addresses are still registered with the .com domain. Verisign, which manages the .com domain, said it represented 47% of all registered domain names.

Verisign said the total number of .com and .net domain names increased to 44.2 million by the end of the second quarter of 2005. Country code names such as .de, .uk and .br collectively accounted for 35% of all domain names.

In total, four million .uk web addresses have been registered and 110,000 are created every month.

Nominet found that people preferred to buy from sites with .uk addresses because they were more confident they would be able to contact the company by phone, or via a UK mailing address and believed that such companies would be bound by British trade laws.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) is lobbying the Government about the Olympics bill, which it claims could prevent companies from benefiting from the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Olympics Bill rules on the use of Games-related words and images by non-official advertisers. It was drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as a legal framework for London to stage the Games and to safeguard the investment of official sponsors.

A London 2012 spokesman said: “There is absolutely no intention of stopping London businesses from becoming involved in the Games, quite the reverse”.

The bill includes laws to stop a company associating itself with an event without being an official sponsor. Companies can sponsor the Games through the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Partner Program, or through domestic deals with the London Organising Committee.

The use of “Olympic marks”, such as the Olympic rings is already restricted to official sponsors by existing legislation, but the new bill will make it illegal to combine words like “games”, “medals”, “gold”, “2012″, “sponsor” or “summer” in any form of advertising.

The IPA says this will prevent businesses benefiting in any way from the event. IPA’S legal director, Marina Palomba said: “You won’t even be able to say ‘come to London in 2012′ because it will infringe the act”.

The IOC argues that the legislation is required to safeguard the investment of official sponsors.

The DCMS said speculation on what the new rules will allow was premature. Businesses will receive two years’ notice before the laws are brought in.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) is acquiring business telecoms provider Energis for an initial £594m, but the contract will lead to 700 job losses, by early 2008, as part of an £80m cost reduction strategy.

Cable & Wireless will be the UK’s largest telecoms network provider following the takeover, placed second only to British Telecom.

C&W secured the takeover deal despite a counter-bid by Thus, placed only a few hours before C&W’s deadline to Energis creditors. Although Energis creditors had demanded a higher offer, C&W refused, and set a deadline of 1700 BST on Monday. C&W’s bid was considered to be better value and more securely funded than the offer made by Thus.

C&W chief executive Francesco Caio said buying Energis would speed C&W’s strategic restructuring by developing the group’s UK business.

Energis specialises in providing voice and data communications to major companies – a lucrative sector of the telecoms market where there is intense competition among a large number of specialist companies. Competition has pressured prices while rapidly developing technologies demand significant investment from companies. C&W expects the merger with Energis to give it the scale it needs to succeed in this environment.

C&W’s takeover of Energis will involve buying the entire share capital of its parent company, Chelys for an initial £594m plus a further investment of £35m into the company to meet its short-term need for working capital. C&W expects to recover this money within the first year. It will make a further payment of up to £80m in three years dependent on share price performance.

A three-month investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) found that illegal Internet trade, in wild animal products, is driving the world’s most endangered species to extinction.

The organisation found 9,000 live animals or products for sale in one week on trading sites, including eBay. Some of the world’s most endangered species were illegally offered for sale online, including a gorilla, a Siberian tiger and four baby chimpanzees. Animal body parts were traded, including hawksbill turtle shells, shahtoosh shawls from the Tibetan antelope and taxidermy specimens of lions, and peregrine falcons. Ivory goods and Asian medicine containing parts of tigers and rhinos were also sold.

The report, Caught in the Web: Wildlife Trade on the Internet, claims that many animals are targeted by poachers to meet the demands of wealthy consumers.

Ifaw has expressed concern that traders are taking advantage of the Internet’s anonymity to create a cyber black market in rare animals. It urged the UK Government to take urgent action.

Many of the animals traded online are protected under international law, by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), while British native wildlife law prohibits the trade all wild birds and mammals found in the UK. Ifaw has urged the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to ensure that bans are enforced and to provide user-friendly information on the laws on its own website. The report also suggests that Defra should set up a hotline for easy reporting of suspicious trade.

The report was welcomed by Defra.