Archive

Nine major European air carriers unveiled plans Tuesday to launch a new online travel service that will sell flights and related travel products to consumers. The joint venture, which has been named Opodo, is backed by the consortium of Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British...

The ability to research products, compare prices and choose from a wide selection of comparable goods are the main reasons behind Internet user decisions to purchase online, according to the results of a survey released Wednesday by Yahoo! and audience-measurement firm ACNielsen. The inaugural Y...

Members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee are calling upon some of the Internet's biggest e-tailers to help prevent online auction fraud. In a letter sent to Web giants Amazon.com, Yahoo! and eBay on Monday, committee chairman Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana) asked the chief executive off...

The number of dot-com job cuts fell for the second month in a row and reached the lowest point since November, according to a report released Tuesday by executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. CGC reported that 31 percent fewer employees got pink slips from their dot-com employers...

The online auction world shrugged its collective shoulders when two of the biggest competitors of Internet auction powerhouse eBay, Yahoo! Auctions and uBid, announced that they had made a deal to share listings. The blase reaction proves how entrenched and invincible eBay has become. Right now,...

Amazon.com said Tuesday it had struck a partnership designed to beef up its ability to stream audio, video and game clips as a way of improving the shopping experience for its customers. "Digital media streaming has enormous long-term potential for online retail," said Jeff Blackburn, general m...

Many U.S. airlines are now offering consumers discounts for making travel reservations over the Internet. Airlines have good reason to want travelers to book online, said Rob Lancaster, Internet market strategist at the Yankee Group. "It's a logical move," Lancaster told the E-Commerce Times. "W...

Controversial song-swapping site Napster announced Tuesday that it has signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the UK's Association of Independent Music (AIM) and the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA). The agreement authorizes Napster's use of hundreds of thousands of tracks b...

If it feels as if the summer is already racing by, consider how the legislators on Capitol Hill feel. October is just around the corner, and that means somebody has to do something about Internet taxes. October is the month the current moratorium on Internet taxation expires. Unlike so many othe...

Worldwide spending on Internet services reached almost US$22 billion in 2000, according to a report released Monday by IDC. "As a result of the dot-com bubble burst, there's been much speculation that the opportunity for Internet services firms has evaporated," said Pooneh Fooladi, senior analys...

In Part 1 of a two-part series, the E-Commerce Times began to dispel the seven deadly myths of B2B e-commerce. Analysts told us that, contrary to what many people think, B2B is less about making money than making business connections, and that success in B2C e-commerce might not translate into su...

UK retailer Tesco said Monday it will enter the U.S. online grocery market, buying a stake in the e-tail business of supermarket chain Safeway. Tesco said it will pay approximately US$22 million for a 35 percent stake in Safeway's GroceryWorks online subsidiary, enabling the U.S. company to expan...

E-commerce firms, among others, have yet to grasp the full value of Internet advertising because many do not recognize the overall impact that online branding can have, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix. Businesses that judge advertising campaigns solely on their abil...

In a bid to tap small but lucrative business markets, Amazon.com announced Monday that it is launching a software licensing unit that it says will enable customers to save up to 20 percent off full retail pricing. According to the e-tail giant, the venture will also enable business owners to redu...

Several companies that used bogus "rebate" checks to con consumers into signing up for Internet yellow page listings agreed to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that their operations were deceptive and violated federal law, the FTC said Friday. According to the FTC, the defendan...