1999: the year in review

January

Legendary Spiderman creator Stan Lee spins a Web of the digital kind, announcing a new comics site . . . the world seems a little less secure as 56-bit cryptography is cracked in record time . . . the Child Online Protection Act (a.k.a. "CDA II") rolls into court, as unconstitutionally vague and politically volatile as its 1995 ancestor; by February the law will be frozen by a temporary injunction . . . California brings Gary Dellapenta to trial, the first person charged under that state's new cyber-stalking statute; he pleads guilty . . . eBay wins an award for coolest shopping site of 1998; the statuette is immediately stolen—and offered for auction on eBay . . . the Super Bowl is wall-to-wall dot-com ads, a trend that will all but overwhelm TV by year's end . . .

February

The Victoria's Secret online "fashion" show brings the Net to a standstill . . . Amazon has mud on its face when critics reveal that some of their "recommended" books are paid placements; the company offers refunds to anyone thus duped into reading something stinky . . . Playboy sues Excite and Netscape for selling search placement for the word "playboy" to rival sites; by year's end they'll attempt to sue a former Playmate for using the name on her site . . . FreePC announces plans to give free computers to the 10,000 people who most closely fit a desired demographic; 500,000 people apply . . . search engine site GoTo.com sues Walt Disney and Infoseek over the Go.com logo, a green traffic light-type circle with white lettering . . . the people who run the Grammy Awards won't let MP3.com advertise their "controversial" site in the official Grammy magazine . . .

March

Mozilla.org head Jamie Zawinski, noting that the undertaking "has become too depressing, and too painful, for me to continue working on," steps down from the long-awaited AOL-Netscape project; Zawinski's thoughtful valedictory, posted on his personal Web site (www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html), notes that "you can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source,' and have everything magically work out" . . . the Artist Formerly Known As Prince filed several Federal lawsuits to prevent folks from selling his music online, posting his lyrics, or using that squiggle that passes for his name . . . the Melissa virus runs amuck . . . Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet . . . after four years in prison awaiting trial, Kevin Mitnick pleads guilty on hacking-related charges . . . domain registrar Network Solutions starts rerouting visitors to the InterNIC directory to its business Web site; the US government (which hired NSI to register domains long before the Net took off) is not amused . . .

April

B92.net, the last independent radio station broadcasting from Serbia, is shut down by that government; online supporters around the world publicize the closure indefatigably and, within a few days, offer B92 archives and broadcasts of phone calls from Kosovo on various sites . . . an employee of PairGain posts a fake Bloomberg story claiming that his company was about to be acquired; the story drives PairGain stock prices up 31 percent before the hoax is uncovered, and Gary Hoke is eventually sentenced to five years' probation and fined $93,000 . . . Al Gore's campaign Web site asks kids for personal information without telling them to get a parent's permission . . . George W. Bush flips out over gwbush.com, calling parodist proprietor Zach Exley a "garbage man" and insisting that there should be "limits to freedom" . . . a massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School leads to substantially increased scrutiny of "different" kids and hyperviolent video games . . . a "voyeur dorm" live-porn Web site draws ire in Tampa; the city shuts it down as a zoning violation . . .

May

Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace opens; millions are repulsed by computer-generated atrocity Jar Jar Binks . . . veteran news anchor Hugh Downs quits ABC to host an online project . . . a guy named Bryan Winter blows off a potential date via (exceedingly rude) e-mail; the jilted party forwards the letter around the Net as much-deserved revenge . . . the Church of Latter-Day Saints puts its voluminous genealogical archives online . . . Mr. Rogers—you know who that is, don't you?—launches a Web site at www.pbs.com/rogers . . . the WB may have postponed the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer post-Columbine, but you could see it online if you knew where to look . . .

June

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ends its seven-year run . . . Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold announces a one-year leave of absence; MS flacks deny the rumors that Steve Ballmer made him walk the plank . . . Sony offers its Aibo robotic dog for sale online; it sells out in 20 minutes . . . Pirates of Silicon Valley, a biopic of Messrs. Gates, Jobs, et al., airs to general amusement . . . Office 2000 rolls out . . . calls for an Internet sales tax increase as various state legislators jump on the bandwagon . . . Network Solutions and ICANN, the international body purporting to set the rules for the Net henceforth, square off on domain-registration issues, catching consumer advocate Ralph Nader in the crossfire . . . the MP3 crowd scores a major victory when a savvy legal ruling saves the Diamond Rio player from being trampled under the jackboots of the Recording Industry Association of America . . . MS exec Greg Maffei opens his mouth and stupid falls out, as he claims that most Microsoft temps couldn't actually get a job at the company . . . beloved lyrics server www.lyrics.ch returns to the Web after a prolonged legal battle, but it's essentially lobotomized . . . Third Voice introduces software that allows visitors to leave digital graffiti on any Web site, much to the annoyance of most Webmasters . . . the Hunger Site (www.thehungersite.com) launches; by year's end the click-to-donate site will be contributing as much as 1 million cups of grain per day to the United Nations World Food Program . . .

July