The categories and the 35 finalists nominated for the MIT eBusiness Awards in seven categories -- due to be announced April 12 -- are indicative of the shape of electronic commerce today.

The "Web Responsibility'' category recognises companies such as Entrust Technologies and Verisign that attempt to provide standards and vetting procedures to bring some confidence between businesses and consumers on the Internet. The ''Clicks & Mortar'' category recognises those companies such as UPS (www.ups.com), and Land's End (www.landsend.com) that have successfully used the Internet to transform and augment their way of doing business.

The "International Power Player'' category awards non-US companies making a mark in their markets. The Global Reach Awards are meant for companies such as Babylon.com, Monster.com and Ebay that have used the Internet as a means of doing business internationally.

It's the categories of "Rookie of the Year'', "Disruptive Technology'' and "Industry Transformation'' that are most interesting. Rookies include Kozmo (www.kozmo.com), which promises a home delivery service for goods bought over the Internet. Handspring is the competitor to the Palm handheld organisers set up by three of the original founders.

Another rookie is Mobshop (www.mobshop.com) whose motto is ''Prices fall as people buy''. Mobshop attempts to pool groups of individual buyers of a product to achieve savings. For example on Sunday Mobshop was offering a C-2020 Zoom digital camera with a final price of $576 when 484 buyers had signed on. The closing date for the offer was Wednesday 3 p.m. Buyers may also put in an order which kicks in when a certain price is achieved.

Palm itself is one of the nominees for the "Disruptive Technology'' award.

Among the nominees for that award are Phone.com and Net2phone, which offer low-cost telephone calls over the Internet. Red Hat, a provider of the Linux operating system, is also on the list.

Business to business nominees dominate the ''Industry Transformation'' category with companies such as Chemdex, MarketSoft, Enron and BuildNet.

Healtheon, which took over the Webmd.com site, falls some where in between by providing a meeting place for doctors who want to consult their peers or look up a new drug, and for consumers who want advice from doctors.

For more information about the nominees -- and on April 12 the winners -- go to http://www.mitawards.org. The question to ask, especially after the recent severe warnings about the industry, is: How many of these companies are going to be around in five or ten years? Another site to watch on April 12 is www.ecommercecommission.org where the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce will make public its controversial report to Congress on Internet taxes.

The 19-member panel were charged with making recommendations on the impact of federal, state, local, and international taxation and tariffs on transactions using the Internet.

The report has already sparked proposals for legislation to extend the current moratorium on Internet-related taxes, and a phasing out of telephone taxes placed on telecommunications services and on Internet service providers.

The extension of a moratorium on Internet taxes is good in the short term for Internet-based companies, whether they operate in the US or from places such as Bermuda. The US' temporary ban on net taxes expires October 2001.

Many Internet-based companies and mail order firms in the US are not obliged to collect taxes on purchases shipped outside a state.

Taxing sales of goods over the Internet between jurisdictions is a balancing act. The moratorium is unfair as it gives an advantage to the new Internet companies that regular bricks and mortar companies don't get. On the other hand the imposition of taxes could harm the growth of the new economy. It's a difficult question that will have to be faced by governments every where. And once those taxes are imposed the use of offshore centres as a means of escaping them will become the major issue.

As a follow up to last week's column on software bots a reader recommends Artificial Life at www.artificiallife.com where you can chat with four different bots, not all of them very likable. Thanks to the reader for the pointer.

Conference and meetings watch: The spring Comdex show gets underway on April 17-20 in Chicago. The conference will focus on Windows 2000, Linux, Unix, Java, Windows CE, Palm, and Jini operating systems. The details are at http://www.zdevents.com/comdex/spring2000. Computer networking professionals will be interested in the Networld Interop 2000 from May 7-12 in Las Vegas.

Speakers include Microsoft boss Bill Gates. Check www.zdevents.com/interop/lasvegas2000.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin yhotmail.com or (01133) 467012599.