Dot Com News from Week of November 19, 2001

• 11/23/01 - Network Access Solutions Corp. said it has eliminated 95 positions under a restructuring plan aimed at reducing expenses by 34%
• 11/23/01 - Terra Lycos asked most of its U.S. employees to take time off over the Christmas period, in a move to contain costs as the Internet company's online advertising revenues decline.
• 11/21/01 - Worlds.com announced today that Steven G. Chrust, Chairman of Worlds.com, has resigned as a member of the board of directors, leaving Thom Kidrin, its President & CEO, as the sole director. Mr. Kidrin noted that, "As of the most recent reported balance sheet date, the company has a working capital deficiency of approximately $4 million, and has been operating on a near zero cash balance for the past several months. The personnel now assisting the company are doing so on a voluntary basis
• 11/21/01 - Verizon Communications has sent voluntary buyout offers to tens of thousands of employees in the past week in an effort to trim its payroll as the economy contracts.
• 11/21/01 - Coca-Cola Co. fired its head of advertising as part of a corporate restructuring program. In addition, 80 other employees were cut, many of which were in the marketing department.
• 11/20/01 - LTV Corp., the nation's fourth-largest steelmaker, which has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection, says it no longer has enough money to continue making steel and has asked the court for permission to sell off nearly all its assets. If approved, the closure would eliminate 7,500 jobs and could mean the loss of benefits to about 52,000 retirees.
• 11/20/01 - Deere & Co. announced it will cut its staff due to lower shipments of farm equipment and the lame economy. 300 jobs will be lost as the company suffers a net loss of $320.1 million compared with a net income of $71.1 million a year ago.
• 11/19/01 - Alcoa, Inc., the world's largest aluminum maker, said it will close some operations, lay off 4.6% of its global work force and take a fourth-quarter charge of as much as $250 million. About 5,400 job cuts will occur in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
• 11/19/01 - Photography and film giant Eastman Kodak plans to close its Israeli subsidiary PictureVision, in which it has invested $140 million since 1998. Kodak will fire 36 workers in Israel and around 100 in the United States with the measure to take full effect from March 2002.
• 11/19/01 - Online start-up SafeWeb has dismantled its free privacy service, which sheltered individuals' identities and movements as they scanned the Web. The Emeryville, Calif.-based company, which launched its free service last year, said the high cost of bandwidth and a lack of ad-related profits contributed to the closure. The company posted a notice on its Web site last week saying that it has suspended the free service.