January

• The effects of the Y2K bug are only minor.
• AOL-Time Warner merger announced; Bertelsmann and Cegetel envisage ending their partnership with AOL Europe
• France Télécom buys out Global One from its partners
• Vivendi and Vodafone link up to launch mobile portal (Vizzavi) in the Spring
• BNP-Paribas close down Kleline the electronic payment system

February

• Vodafone finally takes over Mannesman
• Spray buys CaramailTelefonica-BBVA announce a strategic alliance
• Deutsche Telekom buys Club-Internet from Lagardère
• The FTC investigate commercial practices of Doubleclick concerning privacy rights
• SBC buy Sterling Commerce for $3.9b
• The CSA, the French audio-visual authority wants to allow any websites to advertise television
• Alcatel buy Newbridge for $7.1b
• Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler and Renault announce the opening of a joint extranet
• 'Denial of service' attacks by hackers seriously disrupt major sites like Yahoo and Amazon
• France Télécom change logo and slogan : which becomes 'bienvenue dans la vie.com' (welcome to the dot-com life)

March

• Launch in Japan of Sony's Playstation 2 games console
• Lucent hive off its company network activity and rebaptise it Avaya
• Adoption by the French Parliament of law on digital signatures
• Guillaume Durand and the Guignols de l’Info on Canal + have public spat, Guignols pretend to quit show
• First round of UMTS auction in the UK, government nets €32b
• Verisign buys NSI for $21b
• Agreement in principle between the USA and the EC concerning the protection of personal data
• Microsoft and Andersen create electronic commerce joint enterprise named Avanade
• Stephen King publishes new work available chapter by chapter only over the web. Renounces in November after 2 episodes because of the limited number of paid downloads
• Allocation of 4 UMTS licences in Spain
• Deutsche Telekom tries and fails to take over US-West Qwest
• Interruption of service of global satellite system Iridium
• AOL subsidiary make file share system Gnutella freely available (for a short while)
• Microsoft presents its games console x-box
• IBM show off 75 Go hard disk
• Cap Gemini buys Ernst & Young consulting for $12b. Cisco, Cap Gemini create global internet consulting partnership
• Telefonica buys Endemol (Dutch TV production company behind the Big Brother concept)
• Vodafone takes control of Airtel, Spanish mobile operator, from BT
• Launch of mobile network Blu in Italy (Benetton, BT)

April

• Nasdaq plunges 355 points April 17
• GTE and Bell Atlantic set up Verizon; the mobile operations of Bell Atlantic and Vodafone in the USA are regrouped also under the Verizon name
• Pokemon craze hits France; Pokemon the film released
• Merger of Pearson's TV business with that of CLT-UFA ; renamed RTL Group
• Heavy metal rock group Metallica sue Napster
• T-Online share flotation by Deutsche Telekom
• France Télécom sells its pager activities (Tatoo, Alapage…) to German company eMessage
• EMI and Net4Music plan to put 4 million partitions of sheet music online
• The Internet child protection law (COPPA) comes into force in the USA
• Microsoft show off the PocketPC
• Merrill Lynch and HSBSC launch global online bank
• Grolier Interactive become Lagardere.net; Hachette sell Grolier for $2.7b

May

• France Télécom suceeds in buying 35 % of former Polish monopoly operator TPSA, for $4b
• Alliance between SAP and Nortel (specialising in customer resource management)
• The 'Iloveyou' virus from the Philippines spreads throughout the world
• DoCoMo buys 15 % of KPN mobiles for €5b
• The major music publishers attack mp3.com for at least $100b
• Failure of merger attempt between Telefonica and KPN
• Lyonnaise des Eaux becomes Noos
• Launch of Quiero TV, digital terrestrial television in Spain
• A British report recommends controls on use of mobile telephones by children (EMF)
• Paris G8 conference on Cybercrime
• ICO, rescued by McCaw, merges with Teledesic
• Lionel Jospin announces an Internet school for Marseille
• Gallimard buys electronique publisher Bibliopolis, only to back out later
• Terra (Telefonica's access provider) buys Lycos for $12.5b
• Failure of Boo.com fashion dot-com, purchased later by fashiomall.com
• BT challenges Oftel before the courts (over the subject of preselecting carriers)
• France Télécom buys Orange for €43.2b; Orange gives up Spanish UMTS licence
• Death of Barbara Cartland. Some 700 books with sales of over a billion copies sold

June

• CanalWeb set up TVWebRégions together with a number of French daily newspapers
• Vivendi announce they are withdrawing from AOL in France
• After the European success of Endemol's 'Big Brother', CBS announce American version
• Radio France board of directors approve the 'Plan bleu' on the redistribution of radio frequencies of the group
• Juge Jackson decides that Microsoft must be split ; Microsoft, goes to the supreme court to appeal
• Vivendi announce plans to purchase Seagram for $33b and rename company Vivendi-Universal
• French court decides that Yahoo ! must not allow French surfers access to Nazi memorabilia through on-line auctions Decision confirmed on appeal. Yahoo announce the removal of such memorabilia at end of year
• Jack Lang, minister of education announces another Internet plan for schools as well as an Internet diploma for secondary schools
• France Télécom sell participation in Telmex, earning €2.5b in capital gains
• AOL launches AOL TV
• The USA (for latin america) and Germany (for central Europe and India) will issue visas to IT specialists
• The European commission block Worldcom-Sprint merger
• French parliament adopts law on auctioneers including on line auction houses
• Freedom of Communication law adopted in France
• European directive project concerning the recycling of electronic materials (WEEE)
• Philippe Bouvard loses job at RTL and is replaced by Dechavanne in the popular radio programme  'Les grosses têtes', (the big heads). Later surveys reveal over a million listeners quit the station

July

• Weakened by rumours, the President of Telefonica, Juan Villalonga has to resign. Exonerated later
• 'Hardship' telephone line rental charge of 45 FF/month by France Télécom and Kertel
• Share flotation of 10 % of Wanadoo
• France Télécom sells its stake in Noos to NTL and Morgan Stanley
• Deutsche Telekom buys 51 % of Slovak telecom, buys out SBC 's stake in the Hungarian operator Matav
• Launch of TV game 'Qui veut gagner des millions' (Who wants to win a million?) on TF1
• Rémy Sautter replaces Jacques Rigaud as president of RTL
• The vitual presenter Ananova is sold to Orange for FF950m
• French government studies plan to drop the television license fee. Not retained
• Both the French courts and the European Commission investigate the surveillance network code-named Echelon. The FBI reveals extensive use of Carnivore to read e-mails, resulting also in official investigations
• Infogrammes try unsuccessfully to purchase Eidos (creators of Lara Croft)
• UMTS auction in Holland ; 5 licences awarded
• International alliance of musical rights managers (Sacem, BMI…) creation of the  Fast Track system
• The ART allocates local loop radio licences to Fortel, another to FirstMark; certain regional winners turn down offer
• The French weekly 'Evenement du jeudi', bought by Georges Ghosn, becomes a France Soir supplement
• Unita, Italian hardline communist newspaper folds. In the autumn, Humanité undergoes restructuring
• Havas experiment with an electronic schoolbag in the autumn
• Global Crossing sells its local telephone activity (former name Frontier) to Citizens Group for $365b
• Gemstar seals merger with TV Guide for $14.8b
• Altern ends free hosting service
• Excite@home and Chello merge
• BskyB buys Open TV for $4b
• Oxygen's global submarine cable project goes under
• CNet buy Ziff-Davis for $1.6b
• Deutsche Telekom try to buy mobile VoiceStream for $50.7b ; deal threatened with legislative delay by senator Hollings
• Bertelsmann buy CDNow for FF800m
• Carlton and United News & Media drop merger attempt; Granada buy United News & Medias
• NEC's research centre in Princeton (USA) registers a wave of light passing through a gas cloud before it went in

August

• Marc Tessier nominated president of the holding company France Télévision
• Fatal fire in the TV tower in Ostankino, Moscou
• BT take control of Viag Intercom for €6.65b

September

• Tiscali buys WorldOnLine
• Sale of 00h00, on-line editor
• Hewlett-Packard fail to purchase consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers;
• After UGC, Gaumont and MK2 launch a cinema subscription card. UGC are fined by the CNC; widespread controversy over the sale of such cards
• Apple launch MacOs X
• Quebecor buy Videotron for €4.2b
• Lower prices announced for fixed to mobile calls by France Télécom
• Lycos buy Spray for €674b
• Web journalists not accredited at the Sydney olympics (see article)
• Dotcomfailures.com, the dot-com failure portal, fails.
• TF1 and M6 group their development projects and launch TF6
• NTT DoCoMo buy 42 % of AOL Japan
• Eric Guily, head of Agence France-Presse, resigns
• Electronic bracelets approved for French prisoners
• Iaxis the European operator's operator fails
• The French government schedule local loop unbundling for January 2001

October

• Digital signatures become legal in the USA
• Increase in line rental charges by France Télécom to FF82.30; 25 % reduction in long distance rates
• Vodafone announces sale of Infostrada to ENEL
• Ericsson start work on 4th generation mobiles at 10 Mbits/s
• Moroccan government will sell 35 % of Maroc Télécom
• EMI and Time Warner drop merger plans before the European Commission has time to say no
• Controversy and confusion surround Franc Télécom's offer of free line rental rental charges. Local rate offer is accepted but the opinion of the Conseil de la Concurrence is sought by the goverment for national rates
• Landtel fail to buy a 70 % stake in Kertel from PPR
• UMTS auction fiasco in Italy following drop out of Blu (see article)
• A hacker gains access to Microsoft's application code
• AT&T announces 4 way split
• Sporadic adoption of Digital Millenium Copyright Act  in the United States

November

• Surprise agreement between Napster and Bertelsmann. MP3.com and Universal-Vivendi reach compromise
• Akai goes out of business
• Restructuring at Worldcom following poor financial results
• Lycos Europe buy Multimania for €222m
• Viacom buys BET (Black entertainment Network)for $3b
• Intercall files for bankruptcy
• LibertySurf buys Freesbee
• Microsoft shows off new  Tablet PC 
• NRJ abandon attempt to buy RMC, Nextradio steps in
• Arbitration sought between Vivendi and BT over the launch of mobile portal Vizzavi (Vivendi-Vodafone) : BT to receive financial compensation
• France Télécom buys Equant for $3.47b, to be merged with Global One
• Alliance between Suez-Lyonnaise and Groupe Arnault in UMT, and Internet sectors
• Satellite constellation paging company Orbcomm goes bust
• Internet school project for Bourges
• Iridium sold to Daniel Colussi for $25m
• Local loop radio auctions fail to attract much money in the UK
• Intel launch the Pentium 4, with 42 million transistors
• A monkey with an implant is able to operate a remote control device in an experiment at Duke University
• Deutsche Telekom withdraws candidature for a UMTS licence in France

December

• Drop in local rates by France Télécom; Conseil de la Concurrence refuse national rate for France Télécom
• The coucil of ministers approve rules which authorise clients to file suit locally against websites
• Wanadoo buys Freeserve
• The Pentagon takes out a 2 to 3 year subscription deal with Iridium and orders 15000 terminals

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