ROME, Jan 31: Software titan Bill Gates on Friday predicted a tech-driven economic boom at the end of the decade as new software systems and Internet use increase productivity, but said many people were avoiding the Internet because of online privacy fears.

Gates told an audience of business and political leaders at the Italian senate that the 1990s had only “scratched the surface” of the technological frontier.

The current decade was the “digital decade where things like electronic commerce, electronic government, efficient health care management, and lots of consumer applications will become common sense, where you’ll just expect them to be there and be available.”

Despite setbacks for investors in wireless networking, which will be one of the engines of the new economy, the Microsoft chairman predicted “nothing will stop the increase in wireless technology being available everywhere.”

The world’s richest man, Gates told the senate gathering he believed the economy in the next few years would be “quite stable.”

“But in the later years of this decade as these new systems of electronic commerce and communications are being used by small and large businesses, I do expect the productivity advances will be quite substantial and therefore we can have some of the strong economic growth that we’ve had in the past.”

Government and industry would have to play their part to avoid a “digital divide,” to ensure each student had access to a computer, and that workers are trained in IT.

“Government has a leadership role, but industry, including our company in particular, can play a extremely supportive role in making software available at the lowest possible cost.”

A “critical topic” was privacy for computer users, Gates warned.

“Many people are holding back from using the Internet because of these concerns,” he said, which ranged from fears over using e-mail address because of junk mail, and of using credit card numbers online.

“We have to make it clear to people as they’re using the Internet, how will the information be used, and make it simple for them to understand that.”

“What we’re facing is that we have to be more explicit about these rules,” he said.—AFP