July 26-27, 1999
Montreal, Canada

Speaker Biography

Barbara S. Wellbery

Special Counsel for Electronic Commerce
US Department of Commerce

Barbara S. Wellbery is Counsellor to the Under Secretary for Electronic Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce where she heads up the Electronic Task Force for the International Trade Administration. Her responsibilities in that position include all aspects of electronic commerce including privacy, standards, and authentication. She previously served as Chief Counsel for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NITA) and, in that capacity, has worked on a wide range of legal and policy matters relating to the National Information and Global Information Infrastructures, including the 1996 Telecommunications Act, privacy, universal service and copyright. Ms. Wellbery concentrated on Internet privacy, domain name registration and other Internet governance issues while at NTIA.

Prior to joining NTIA Ms. Wellbery was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Discovery Communications, Inc. with responsibilities for a wide range of legal issues relating to the cable programming business, including international joint ventures, communications law and regulation, trademark and copyright issues. Before joining Discovery Ms. Wellbery served as Deputy General Counsel and Director of Copyright at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) where she advised on entertainment law issues, copyright, communications law and regulation, and general corporate issues.

Ms. Wellbery began her legal career as an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC. She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. from SUNY, Binghamton.