Articles by Lori Enos

As U.S. e-commerce spending moves toward a projected $2 trillion (US$) by 2003, the market for packaged e-commerce software is also expected to increase dramatically, according to Forrester Research The report predicts that U.S. infrastructure expenditures will grow from $3.1 billion in 1999 to $14.5 billion by 2003, with online companies increasin...

Keeping with its reputation for being tough on cybercrime, the State of Washington launched three initiatives last week designed to help law enforcement officials combat illegal Internet activities The efforts include a partnership of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, an online clearinghouse that will help people avoid online fraud...

Deputy U.S. Postmaster General John Nolan announced Thursday that a new United States Postal Service Electronic Postmark (EPM) is now available Like a traditional postmark, the EPM provides third-party verification of the time and date a document is sent. In addition, the EPM offers an added level of security to electronic messaging, which includes...

Phone.com, a pioneer in developing the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for mobile phones, has filed a pre-emptive suit against rival Geoworks Corporation over its '529 patent The suit, filed in federal court in San Jose, California, asks the court to "put an end to Geoworks' repeated and unjustified accusations that virtually the entire wireles...

Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) have joined forces to tackle copyright protection in the digital age Xerox announced Thursday that it is spinning off the Xerox Rights Management Group into a new company called ContentGuard, Inc. The new venture, funded in part by an investment from Microsoft, will deliver software solutio...

Andre Young, better known as multi-platinum rap star Dr. Dre, is suing Napster and several yet-to-be-named students and schools who allegedly used Napster's MP3 music swapping software to infringe upon his copyrights The suit, filed by Dr. Dre and his Aftermath Entertainment label in a Los Angeles federal court, did not single out individuals, but ...

Bankruptcy, mergers, and acquisitions could swallow up as much as 90 percent of the current crop of online business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, according to a new report from Boston, Massachusetts-based AMR Research The company predicts that the number of exchanges will shrink from today's 600 to fewer than 100 firms by 2001.

A new IDC report indicates that despite a rapid increase in the number of small American businesses climbing aboard the Internet express, a surprisingly small percentage are actually selling their products or services online According to the 1999 U.S. Small Business Survey, only 850,000 small businesses are engaged in e-commerce transactions, a fig...

After weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling over remedies in the Microsoft antitrust case, published reports Monday indicate that the U.S. government and 19 states are inclined to seek a breakup of the company Reportedly, the government will propose a radical alteration in the structure of Microsoft, splitting it into two or three individual compani...

Having apparently not received its fill of litigation over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. filed eight federal lawsuits alleging copyright and trademark infringement against small companies in North Carolina and Tennessee Wednesday. The software giant alleges that the defendants distributed pirated copies of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office...

According to published reports, primary Microsoft insurer Zurich American Insurance Co. has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in the state of Washington to rule that the coverage it wrote for Microsoft does not apply to antitrust claims Zurich, a subsidiary of Switzerland's Zurich Allied AG, is also arguing that it should not have to pay Micro...

When the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its "Internet Ad Revenue Report" earlier this week, the common misperception that "banners are dead" was shaken to its foundation According to the report, Internet advertising reached over $4.62 billion (US$) in 1999, representing an increase of 141 percent over the $1.92 billion spent on online a...

Online giant Amazon.com, which has already invested $30 million (US$) in California-based Internet startup WineShopper.com, announced Tuesday that it has forged a partnership with the newly-launched e-tailer WineShopper.com currently serves customers only in California, but plans to expand its coverage across the United States. The company intends ...

U.S. shoppers will likely spend over $61 billion (US$) online this year, according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group The report, "The State of Online Retailing 3.0," was released Monday by Shop.org, a trade association for e-tailers. The data also indicates that the business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce market will grow 85 percent in 2...

A Microsoft engineer reportedly included a back door in the company's Microsoft Internet Information Server software that could enable hackers to break into hundreds of thousands of Web sites around the world Rain Forest Puppy, one of the experts who discovered the hack, characterized it as "a very specific vulnerability." The back door makes sites...

In a rare show of bipartisan unity, 42 U.S. governors attacked the final report of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce (ACEC) Wednesday in a scathing letter to Congress. The governors say that if accepted, the recommendations would have the potential to reduce state and local tax revenues by more than $30 billion (US$) per year The lette...

In a decision that could have a chilling effect on online auctioneers, Internet Service Providers and e-commerce companies, a German judge has ruled that AOL Germany violated copyright law by taking no action to prevent subscribers from swapping pirated digital music files The suit, which was filed in 1998 by Hit Box Software, requested $50,000 (US...

Hot on the heels of an International Data Corp. (IDC) report stating that wireless computing will dominate the Web by 2001, three of the largest manufacturers of mobile products announced Tuesday that they have joined forces to develop an open and common industry framework for secure mobile electronic transactions The three partners, Nokia, Ericsso...

The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! in Paris Tuesday, charging the Internet giant with illegally hosting auctions of Nazi-related paraphernalia. Selling or displaying any items that incite racism, including Nazi artifacts, is strictly illegal in France LICRA, which called for a boycott of...

In an effort to move toward global leadership in the high-tech industry, the Singapore government rolled out a three-pronged plan today that it hopes will double the country's "infocomm" -- information technology and telecommunications -- revenues to $23.2 billion (US$) by 2005 Other goals of the Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA), the ...