Articles by Lori Enos

Adding haze to what is already a cloudy picture, a trio of new reports asserts that slow delivery, security fears and pricing problems will continue to hamstring e-commerce in the United Kingdom One report, released Thursday by the UK's Trading Standards Institute, went so far as to suggest that some customers would be better off making their purch...

BMG Entertainment announced Tuesday that it will begin offering digital downloads of its albums and singles through a network of partner Web sites The company, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, said its initial offering will consist of more than 100 singles and albums from a variety of BMG artists, including Christina Aguilera, Toni Braxton, Whitney ...

After less than a year in business as partners, Sotheby's auction house and e-tail giant Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) announced Tuesday that they are shutting down their co-branded site, Sothebys.amazon.com, and consolidating the listings into Sotheby's primary online auction site, Sothebys.com. The companies said they expect the consolidation to be complete in about 30 days...

Photography giant Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) announced Tuesday that it has taken an equity stake in online photo site PhotoAlley and said the two companies plan to work together to drive sales of both conventional and digital photography products and services Also on Tuesday, Kodak announced a partnership with Circuit City to offer co-branded Interne...

According to a report released Monday by Cheskin Research and Chinadotcom Corporation, e-tailers will need to understand regional differences among the Chinese population in order to gain a foothold in the world's most populous country The report, "Greater e-China Insights," examines the online behavior and attitudes of Chinese Internet users in ma...

Automaker DaimlerChrysler (NYSE: DCX) announced Monday that it is consolidating all of its e-business activities into a new subsidiary called DCX NET Holding The company said that DCX NET Holding, which was launched with start-up capital of $500 million (US$), will form the nucleus of an initiative to make the company "faster, more efficient, and t...

Streaming media -- including audio, video, text, animation and multimedia content -- will drive the next wave of Internet growth, according to a new report by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. The report predicts that total spending on Web streaming media will grow from $9.7 million (US$) in 1999 to $21.6 million in 2004 In two to five years, the audio a...

Mitsubishi Corporation and Commerce One (Nasdaq: CMRC) announced plans Thursday to establish a business-to-business (B2B) e-marketplace for the gas, chemical, and utilities industries in Japan "Unlike the U.S. where there is a great deal of interest in e-marketplaces, Japan has not seen a huge uptake in e-business," said Hajime Kimura, chief operat...

Cybercrime is skyrocketing despite increased spending on security measures, according to "The 2000 Information Security Survey," a study released Thursday by Information Security magazine "Results of this survey prove that spending millions of dollars (US$) adopting security practices doesn't guarantee effectiveness," said Andy Briney, editor-in-ch...

Despite the fact that overall traffic to business and finance Web sites grew by 11 percent during the second quarter, visitors to online trading sites decreased by nearly 20 percent, according to a study released Wednesday by Jupiter Media Metrix The study found that consumer banking sites -- with an increase in unique visitors of 37 percent -- wer...

A new study by venerable information resource Consumer Reports concludes that consumers are no likelier to find the cheapest airfares through Web travel services than via "a low-tech telephone." The Yonkers, New York-based consumer group's study of Cheap Tickets, Expedia, Lowestfare and Travelocity revealed that some sites play favorites and give t...

Fueled by an epidemic of hack attacks and costly viruses, spending on security software is set to soar from $2.5 billion (US$) in 1999 to over $6.7 billion in 2004, according to a study released Tuesday by Gartner Group division Dataquest "As Internet and e-commerce applications mature, security will gain increased focus, creating more opportunity ...

Due in part to an influx of new e-shoppers, nearly 45 million Americans will do some of their shopping online this holiday season, according to a study released Tuesday by eMarketer The New York City-based research firm is predicting that U.S. online holiday spending will reach $12.5 billion (US$), an increase of 71 percent from 1999's total of $7....

China has announced sweeping Internet regulations that restrict foreign investment in Internet content providers and require Web sites to maintain highly detailed records that must be turned over to the police on demand The new rules -- passed two weeks ago, but first published Monday in the state-run Xinhua Daily Telegraph -- are expected to sever...

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that most Americans do not believe that downloading music from the Internet is stealing, even if the music is copyrighted "The Online Music Report" also reveals that users rarely buy the songs that they download, further raising the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America (R...

Although ever-increasing numbers of Web users are surfing to auction sites, a study from cPulse suggests that the auction fad will not have staying power unless online auctioneers take action to convert browsers to buyers The "Internet Customer Satisfaction Study" found that during the second quarter of this year, 26 percent of site visitors were f...

A study released Thursday by the Council for Excellence in Government shows that a majority of Americans believe e-government means better government The report, "E-Government: The Next American Revolution," said that while Americans believe e-government will save tax dollars, it will more importantly allow citizens to become better informed about ...

Amid acrimonious debate over how Internet purchases should be taxed, if at all, representatives from 27 U.S. states are meeting near Chicago, Illinois Friday for public hearings on a proposal that would streamline sales tax for both online and offline retailers "The states are designing a new, simpler sales-and-use tax system that increases uniform...

Having cleared its final regulatory hurdle, automotive e-marketplace Covisint will begin pilot operations Friday, the company has announced The online automotive exchange, founded by Ford, DaimlerChrysler and General Motors, received approval from the German Bundeskartellamt, or Federal Cartel Office. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave Co...

E-tail giant Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) issued a formal apology Wednesday for price testing it conducted earlier in the month that caused customers to be quoted different prices for the same DVD Although several news reports indicated that Amazon was altering the prices based on demographics, the Seattle, Washington-based e-tailer denied those claim...