Articles by Mary Hillebrand

A handful of Web sites are giving U.S. citizens the opportunity to participate in national political party conventions without having to travel to Philadelphia or Los Angeles This year's presidential campaign is the first election to be heavily covered on the Internet. The shift to Net coverage is being fueled by the likely candidates, Texas Govern...

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee heard conflicting testimony Monday over whether the Internet surveillance system being operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the code name "Carnivore" threatens privacy in an age when government intrusion into personal communications is already considered by many to be out of control...

With a nod to the far-reaching power of the Internet, Texas Governor George W. Bush Wednesday made a full-day event out of relaunching his presidential campaign Web site The likely Republican nominee held a press conference to tout the site's user-friendly design and unveil a new TV commercial that focuses solely on bringing people to his site.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted almost unanimously Tuesday that spam should be unlawful In a 427-1 vote, the House passed the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000, prohibiting the transmission of e-mail without a valid return e-mail address. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico).

The governing body for Internet domain names is meeting this week in Japan to draw up its blueprint for expanding the choice of Web site names available to the general public. However, the question remains whether simply allowing more alternatives to the ".com" suffix will solve the naming system's problems The Internet Corporation for Assigned Nam...

Fighting for its life, online music swapping site Napster, rallied its legal defenses in an attempt to thwart a court challenge to shut it down. The company argued that its service was not anymore illegal than using a VCR to record television shows In a brief filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Napster...

RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK) announced Wednesday that it has forged an alliance with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to distribute multimedia content to cell phones and other mobile devices Nokia, one of the largest mobile terminal manufacturers in the world, will implement RealNetworks' RealPlayer technology in its EPOC-based communicators and smart phones, maki...

In an effort to add community dynamics to its e-mail offerings, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced Wednesday that it will pay about $434 million (US$) in an all-stock transaction to acquire free group e-mail service eGroups. The eGroups acquisition will also boost the new Corporate Yahoo! enterprise service that was unveiled Monday Yahoo! agreed to is...

Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) announced Tuesday that it will partner with PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: PHSY) to develop a new Internet company that will focus on welcoming seniors into the digital age The new entitity, to be called SeniorCo, will be an expansion of PacifiCare's existing Senior.com.

In an effort to help local car dealers keep pace with the increasing number of online auto sellers, the National Automobile Dealers Association on Monday launched DriversSeat.com, an Internet portal that links consumers directly to dealer Web sites The site, built by The Cobalt Group, enables visitors to locate auto dealerships in their area and sc...

The White House has commissioned a new portal, Firstgov.gov, to expedite information delivery to citizens from U.S. government agencies and services that are presently spread across more than 20,000 separate Web sites After shifting from his usual weekly radio address to his first-ever "Internet address," President Bill Clinton said Saturday that t...

McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) announced Thursday that it will expand its Internet presence beyond the current online brochure it maintains by teaming with Accel-KKR, Inc. to form eMac Digital, a new company that will develop Internet-related businesses The Chicago, Illinois-based eMac Digital will initially focus on business-to-business (B2B) ventur...

By launching seven new voice technology products, IBM (NYSE: IBM) declared its commitment Thursday to developing voice technology as a key channel for mobile Internet applications Big Blue has established strategic relationships with Siebel Systems (Nasdaq: SEBL), General Magic (Nasdaq: GMGC) and Luminant (Nasdaq: LUMT) to expand its voice-over-Int...

Mammoth online services provider America Online announced Monday that it will roll out its much-anticipated interactive TV service this week in three U.S. cities, selling enhanced TV for $14.95 (US$) on top of the standard AOL monthly access fee With AOLTV, consumers in Baltimore, Maryland, Phoenix, Arizona, and Sacramento, California will be able ...

A group of 12 major Hollywood studios is asking a federal court to stop RecordTV.com from transmitting movies and TV shows over the Internet without acquiring distribution rights RecordTV.com, which enabled visitors to use its Web site as a VCR to record programs for viewing at a later time, immediately shut down its service pending resolution of t...

As federal regulators scrutinize its proposed merger with entertainment powerhouse Time Warner, Internet giant America Online (NYSE: AOL) is moving forward with plans to integrate the Web with non-PC technologies AOL unveiled a plan Thursday to enable Sprint PCS (NYSE: PCS) mobile phones to access the company's online services, just one day after a...

Key members of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican leadership gathered on Friday to launch GOP.gov, a Web site designed to inform the public about current issues and the views of GOP members of Congress House Majority Leader Richard A. Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay joined Chairman of the House Republican Conference Rep. J.C. Watts, Jr....

EarthLink, Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK), the second largest Internet service provider (ISP) in the United States, said on Thursday that it will buy top-ten ISP OneMain.com (Nasdaq: ONEM) for $308 million (US$) in cash and stock The merger will add about 762,000 subscribers to EarthLink's base, extending the company's reach to over four million members. Eart...

A new survey by digital entertainment research and information company Webnoize suggests that most college students who use Napster's controversial music file-swapping software would be willing to pay to keep that privilege According to Webnoize, more than half of the 4,294 students surveyed at four-year colleges in New England said they would pay ...

Antivirus labs in Russia and Finland have identified a new e-mail virus that sends spam, or mass amounts of unwanted e-mail, to mobile phones The "Timofonica" worm, which originated in Spain and sends an e-mail message in Spanish, appears to have been developed as a protest against Spain's dominant telecommunications provider, Telefonica.