Archive

The state of Texas may be the latest to take a bite out of Amazon's bottom line by assessing sales taxes on past purchases by state residents. Texas tax officials are reviewing the taxable status of Amazon purchases after an inquiry from the Dallas Morning News, which asked why the e-tailer appeared...

The long-running debate over net neutrality took another turn Thursday when two lawmakers introduced a bill that would make it a violation of antitrust law for broadband providers to discriminate against different types of content in routing traffic on their networks. John Conyers Jr., a Democrat fr...

Circuit City will allow Blockbuster and its largest shareholder, Carl Icahn, to look into the company's finances in connection with the video rental company's proposed buyout offer. Circuit City also revealed that it has hired Goldman Sachs to help the company look into strategic alternatives to bui...

Attention! We're listening! Seeking competitive advantage and profitability through good relations with the social media, the B2B world has energetically embraced the grand online colloquy known as the two-way talk-back "conversation." Blogs, vlogs, e-communities and social networks, Internet forums...

In a move sure to renew debate over how broadband access should be sold, Comcast is reportedly mulling a cap on how much data a customer buying its basic high-speed Internet access package can use each month. Comcast, the No. 2 provider of high-speed Web access in the U.S., would establish a preset ...

The Internet Archive revealed Wednesday that the FBI dropped an effort to secretly obtain information about the online activities of one of the digital library's users. The Archive revealed that it had been served a National Security Letter by the FBI last year about one of its patrons. The San Fran...

A federal judge in Los Angeles has awarded the Motion Picture Association of America $110 million in compensation from Valence Media, operator of the now-defunct file-sharing Web site TorrentSpy. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered Valence Media to pay $30,000 for each copyright infrin...

In early 2002, the founders of Azul Systems wagered that Java was going to become a prominent enterprise platform. If that happened, they suspected enterprise customers of Java would soon need relief from the pain points caused by poor scaling and disappointing deployment costs. Azul Systems CEO and...

A few days after the seeming culmination of its failed bid to acquire Yahoo for $47.5 billion, Microsoft appears to be contemplating an entirely new Web 2.0 strategy: a partner-free, organic approach to besting Google. The news was delivered by none other than Chairman Bill Gates: "Now at this point...

Take-Two Interactive Software is reporting record-setting sales of $500 million for "Grand Theft Auto IV," with more than 6 million units sold in just one week. "We knew 'Grand Theft Auto IV' would break new ground in terms of the player's experience. ... Now, it has broken sales and rating records ...

Sprint will merge its broadband wireless operations with WiMax firm Clearwire in a multifaceted deal that will create a US$14.5 billion venture to expand high-speed wireless connectivity across the U.S. The joint venture will seek to bring WiMax-based high-speed Internet access to 140 million people...

As a small brick-and-mortar jeweler with retail stores in Central Florida, Goldsmith Jewelry may seem like an unlikely potential e-tail star. Goldsmith, however, has had early success by using blogging to drive traffic to its Web site and gain exposure for its fledging Internet store. The company is...

Chief executive officers worldwide believe major change is coming to the global economy and their businesses, according to IBM's biennial study of CEOs. The executives are are also eager to find ways to keep happy consumers who are increasingly information-savvy and who expect the businesses they bu...

The collapse of this weekend's negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo looked like game over. When the news first broke that Microsoft was walking away from its $44 billion bid, it seemed as though Redmond was the loser: It had tried a high-stakes, high-profile acquisition gambit and failed. Its d...

Yahoo is working with Web security technology specialist McAfee to alert users about potentially risky Web sites. The companies launched the beta version of the SearchScan service on Tuesday. Now, Yahoo users will see red exclamation points and warnings next to search results McAfee has identified a...