We don't intend to let a handful of rogues erode consumer confidence in Internet commerce or Internet auctions.

We want them to know that the borderless Internet marketplace is not a free zone. Together with our partners, we are putting get-rich-quick schemes on notice that we're monitoring the Web and that we intend to take law enforcement action against those that continue to make fraudulent or deceptive claims.

Internet con artists are bad actors without borders.

We hope Americans continue to use the Internet for truthful information, but we also want them to have their antennas up to be careful about those claims that are exaggerated.

With the growth of the Internet and the use of e-commerce, you're going to get more and more of these situations.

In assessing the growth of the Internet, and e-commerce in particular, many marketers, as well as many analysts, tend to overlook Germany, often merely lumping it together with the rest of the E-5 countries or Western Europe as a whole. That's a mistake. Germany is the third-largest economy in the world, right behind the US and Japan, and what happens there — and when and why it happens — is vitally important to the growth of the Internet's infrastructure and economy.