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To maximize relationships with preferred suppliers, many European firms will develop private online hubs that will result in savings of 9.5 percent on sales costs in the coming years, according to a study released Thursday by Forrester Research. A shift to Internet-based hubs on the continent wil...

You may never have heard of one Jim Geringer, but as governor of the great state of Wyoming, he is making some serious noise about taxing Internet purchases. Joining a chorus of government voices from coast to coast, Geringer is prone to sweeping pronouncements about the potential of e-commerce...

Online health care firm WebMD said Thursday that its losses for the second quarter ending June 30th narrowed to 7 U.S. cents per share, compared to a loss of 9 cents per share in this year's first quarter. WebMD's second-quarter loss of $23.8 million, excluding restructuring, integration and n...

The good news for Priceline is that it found the Holy Grail of dot-coms in the most recent quarter. It posted an operating profit. But Priceline hasn't reached e-commerce Nirvana just yet. I don't mean to be a wet blanket. The Priceline story is impressive indeed, the stuff of Hollywood films. ...

Is the online travel market big enough to comfortably feed three of its giants -- Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz -- at the same time? According to Forrester, 18.9 million households will make their travel purchases on the Web this year, netting US$16.7 billion in leisure travel revenues. That'll...

Online auction site BidBay.com said Thursday that it has filed a motion to dismiss the trademark infringement lawsuit recently filed against it by Internet auction giant eBay. In papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California on Tuesday, Tujunga, California-based BidBay contended tha...

Several months ago, industry observers were writing the epitaph for name-your-own-price e-tailer Priceline.com. Here we are less than a year later, and Priceline just turned a profit. Almost unheard of in the current new economy, Priceline actually made some real money. Okay, it only works out t...

Online content company Salon Media Group got much-needed boost after the close of trading Thursday, in the form of a US$2.5 million cash infusion from a group led by the investment firm WR Hambrecht & Co. and its chairman, Bill Hambrecht. Salon made the announcement as it reported a crushing ...

Of the Fortune 100 companies, 81 are now advertising online, up from 67 that did so a year ago, according to a report released Thursday by Jupiter Media Metrix. However, Jupiter said that major media buyers are not increasing their spending on Internet ads as fast as smaller advertisers are. "The ...

Business-to-business (B2B) incubator Internet Capital Group said Wednesday that its second quarter 2001 losses rose 90 percent compared to a year earlier, reaching more than US$354 million. Nevertheless, Wayne, Pennsylvania-based ICG said it has been building its cash reserves as well. ICG said...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Thursday that it has settled charges with three operators of Bigsmart.com, an online business opportunity for investors in an Internet shopping mall network that government investigators charged was an illegal pyramid scheme. According to the FTC...

With tax rebate checks from the U.S. government beginning to arrive in consumer mailboxes, some e-tailers are hoping the extra cash will make its way to their bottom lines. According to many industry experts, however, online businesses should not head for the bank quite yet. Due to the nominal a...

Earnest Thompson, director of corporate marketing and brand communications for Siemens in the United States, recently spoke with the E-Commerce Times about the company's Internet advertising campaigns. According to Thompson, online advertising should be coordinated with other parts of a company...

Perhaps the most ironic development in the ongoing struggle of music file-sharing service Napster is that the site spawned an entire industry of digital music. Because Napster has found itself more focused on litigation than on doing business, its archrivals in the recording industry have stepped...

Hoping to cash in on Japan's infatuation with baseball's Seattle Mariners, Internet behemoth Amazon.com launched the Seattle Mariners Store at its Japanese site on Tuesday. Seattle, Washington-based Amazon is partnering with the online arm for Major League Baseball on the new store. Featured prom...