Articles by Lori Enos

Americans spent US$1.3 billion online during the week surrounding Thanksgiving, an increase of 140 percent over the same week in 1999, according to a survey released Tuesday by Goldman Sachs and PC Data Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto said that early indications point to holiday online sales doubling the numbers from the 1999 holiday season....

Defunct e-tailer Pets.com announced Monday that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to sell its domain name and related trademarks to rival PetSmart.com Along with the valuable Pets.com name, PetSmart will acquire various other URLs currently owned by Pets.com. Pets.com declined to say which names it is selling, but its URL holdings includ...

British law enforcement agencies are seeking the right to log every e-mail and phone call within the United Kingdom, according to a report by the deputy director general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) The agencies are proposing that as a "matter of urgency," communication service providers (CSPs) should be required to maintain...

Enticed by low costs and enhanced targeting options, more retailers are choosing to spend the majority of their holiday advertising dollars online, according to a pair of studies released Monday There were 19 billion total online ad impressions from October to mid-November, a 250 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the lat...

Online industry-sponsored marketplaces (ISMs) are going live faster than expected, according to a study released Friday by Jupiter Research Jupiter found that 41 percent of the 58 business-to-business (B2B) ISMs launched this year are able to conduct transactions online and another 33 percent are expected to go live before the end of the year....

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced Thursday that it has signed contracts with three interactive TV companies as part of its bid to develop the world of television-based e-commerce The Redmond, Washington-based software behemoth said it will work with the companies -- ACTV, eCity, and RespondTV -- to develop a range of so-called t-commerce applicati...

Jay Walker, founder of embattled e-tailer Priceline, is under investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General for alleged violations of state and federal employment law by his privately held company Walker Digital Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the E-Commerce Times that he is investigating claims that Walker Digital, which o...

A record number of U.S. shoppers visited e-tail Web sites last week, according to numbers released Thursday by Internet measurement firm Media Metrix. E-tailers received 35.2 million unique visitors during Thanksgiving week, the firm said, representinga whopping 40.3 percent increase over the same period last year....

In a bid to achieve profitability, e-tailers slashed theirspending on offline advertising during the third quarter and,as a result, cut their customer acquisition costs in half,according to a study released Tuesday by Shop.org and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) The study also found that 95 percent of e-tailers surveyed saidthat they are improvin...

More than 20 of the world's leading high-tech companies, including Microsoft, IBM, Commerce One and Intel, announced Wednesday they have banded together to form a think tank that hopes to address implementation challenges for e-business One of the biggest tasks for the new non-profit corporation, the Business Internet Consortium, will be to develop...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Tuesday it has reached a settlement with two Connecticut residents who operated what the FTC called an "elaborate" Internet pyramid scheme that conned thousands of consumers out of more than US$430,000 The defendants -- David Martinelli, Jr. and Deana Plourde of Terryville, Connecticut -- agreed to pay $...

For the sixth month in a row, dot-com layoffs have reached record numbers, according to a report released Monday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CGC) The Chicago, Illinois-based firm said that during the month of November, 8,789 dot-com employees lost their jobs -- an increase of 55 percent over October's layoff toll of 5,677 and...

European shoppers will spend US$2.2 billion online this holiday season, a figure that would nearly match total European online sales in all of 1999, according to a report released Monday by Forrester Research "As the number of online shoppers grows over time -- in the first six months of this year alone, the number nearly doubled -- retailers have ...

Leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries gathered in Singapore on Friday to sign the e-ASEAN accord, urging member nations to make e-commerce safe and effective for consumers, to establish high-speed Internet connections, and to approve digital signature legislation. The e-ASEAN accord also seeks to eliminate duties on information technology goods ...

Online retailers are providing better customer service than theirbrick-and-mortar counterparts,according to the third quarter American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)released Monday. Overall, e-commerce scored 73.2 on the index, though there weresignificant variances among the different sectors. While online retail stores scored 78 on the 100-p...

Specialized Web travel sites that offer in-depth information on selected destinations are doing a better job of meeting consumers' needs than their mega-site counterparts, according to a new survey of 6,580 travel site visitors by cPulse The research firm also found that the attention niche sites are attracting could encourage larger travel sites -...

Online subscription music service EMusic unveiled a new initiative on Tuesday that it said will "prevent the illegal distribution of EMusic songs" by users of Napster's controversial music file-swapping service Using "acoustic fingerprinting," Redwood City, California-based EMusic will identify songs on Napster that originated from EMusic and ident...

Canadian Tire, the venerable superstore that sells automotive products, sporting goods and other consumer goods, has launched its long-awaited e-commerce site to much fanfare -- and criticism The company, which has been in business for 78 years, reportedly spent as much as US$23 million researching and developing its Web site. However, the firmanti...

With an eye toward staving off a repeat of the holiday fulfillment woes that left thousands of online shoppers without gifts last Christmas morning, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned e-tailers against making promises they cannot keep The agency sent letters to over 100 e-tailers to remind them of their obligations under the 1975 Ma...

A French court ruled Monday that Web powerhouse Yahoo! has 90 days to block French residents from viewing auctions of Nazi memorabilia at its U.S.-based auctions site, or face fines of US$13,000 per day for each day it exceeds the deadline In issuing the ruling, Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez of the Paris Tribunal de Grande reaffirmed an order issued on ...