A new hard-nosed commercialism is spreading over the Internet. Users are increasingly being asked to pay for information and services, while advertising is becoming more intrusive. The backlash has already begun.

... the Internet is being transformed from a vast repository of mostly free content into a commercial cauldron where almost everything is for sale. ... ads leap out from all over the place ... Yahoo will exploit users' personal information ... Making money on the Internet is not easy, especially from advertising.

... pop-up, pop-under ads irritate many users, but site operators have no choice. ...

If the Internet has a soul, it is the vast pool of information which people can explore, usually using one of the web's many free search engines. Now even search engines have become vehicles for marketing products and gathering information on individual surfers. ...

The most effective strategies and business models are still far from clear. Aggressive, in-your-face advertising seems to be working ... If users do not want to be hounded and harrassed by advertising, they may have to pay subscriptions for their favourite sites, just as they do for newspapers, magazines or cable-TV stations.

The fortunes of European cable companies took another tumble today, as United Pan-Europe Communications said that any failure to reach an agreement with its bondholders to restructure its debts could force the company to seek bankruptcy protection from creditors.

S&P says: "WorldCom will be hard-pressed to reverse a slide in its long distance business and cut its $30B debt load. We may cut ratings."

WorldCom shares have fallen 92% in the last 3 years; down 20% just this week. ... Many other telecoms suffered this week from concerns about profits, revenues, cash flow and accounting. ... Lucent, Nortel, Qwest are all trading near all-time lows. ...

Flag Telecom filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest high-speed network operator to buckle under mounting debt amid the industry's glut of network capacity and slumping demand.

Flag's board authorized the filing after banks sped up debt repayment, which triggered a cross default on its outstanding senior notes. ... If an agreement can be reached, Flag could emerge from bankruptcy.

AT&T's stock plunged to its lowest level since 1985, dragged by weakness across the telecommunications and cable television sectors, and by investor displeasure with its proposed reverse stock split, a move never before pursued by a Dow industrials firm, analysts said.

Shares dropped 8% to lowest level in 17 years; down 34% in the last 10 months.

"AT&T's getting hit from all sides -- the cable guys are down, the telecoms have been down and they're going lower." ...

"Given the problems in the telecom sector with carriers with a lot of debt, and given the off-balance sheet issues at Adelphia, I think investors may be concerned about cable stocks that have high debt levels. And Comcast, after the merger with AT&T Broadband, will have a huge amount of debt."

Most of AT&T's stock price reflects the value of the cable television business, rather than its shrinking telephone operations. ...

Lucent plans to cut about 5,000 more jobs than previously expected by the end of June because of the slowdown in the telecom sector.

"It's a lot of little snips ..."

Lucent's stock was down ~3.5% to an all-time low. Down 71% on the year. There are signs the struggling telecom spending market has not shown signs of beginning a long-awaited rebound.

In two days, AOLTW's stock has plunged 10% to reach a four year low, as investors have grown concerned about the company's balance sheet, turmoil in its Internet unit and stock sales by a big shareholder.

"I don't think anyone would have thought that the stock would go down this far. The price is declining with accelerated volume, which reflects panic selling."

The old AOL and Time Warner each financed their growth through intricate partnerships, including ones with Bertelsmann for AOL Europe, with a publicly traded affiliate for AOL Latin America, and with AT&T and with a group controlled by the Newhouse family for various cable systems. Most of those deals are in various stages of restructuring, adding uncertainty.

For years, the telecommunications industry credo [was] "Build it, and they will come."

Now, with hundreds of thousands of miles worth of fiber optic cable lying in U.S. bankruptcy court -- and potentially thousands more on the way -- the question is: What to pay for potentially valuable capacity that may not show a meaningful return for many years?

"At the end of the day, very few of those bidders can afford not to have these assets generating free cash flow relatively soon."

There remains some question whether such carriers need Global Crossing's assets at all.