Articles by Mary Hillebrand

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it wants to promote mediation over lawsuits as a means to resolve disputes about basic consumer transactions conducted over the Internet In an effort to prevent the slow legal system from bogging down the lightning fast growth of the nation's largest new market, the FTC plans to hold a work...

With less than a week until Valentine's Day -- the second most popular U.S. gift-giving holiday behind Christmas -- researchers are already predicting how many people will shop online and what they will buy One study by Ernst & Young predicts that 29 percent of online shoppers -- 11.3 million Americans -- will make a Valentine's Day purchase online...

A new study from ActivMedia Research shows that even the most aggressive e-commerce marketing strategies are unable to compete step-for-step with the power of brand names and built-in customer loyalty The report, titled Fashion & Style: Building Consumer Loyalty Online, states that "Today's online consumers buy from names they know and trust in the...

The U.S. Department of Commerce has earmarked $175 million (US$) for e-commerce initiatives in its fiscal year 2001 budget, but the proposal faces certain opposition in the Republican-led Congress As expected, the Clinton administration is positioning its Commerce Department budget proposal as necessary to carry out White House initiatives for e-co...

A recent poll of leading chief information officers (CIOs) at U.S.-based businesses shows that 65 percent consider e-commerce to have supplanted Y2K as their leading technology issue The survey by CIO Magazine also found that while 62 percent of CIOs believe that President Clinton should appoint a national security czar to worry about technology-re...

The U.S. Department of Commerce is ready to let the public help shape its policy on electronic commerce, but more than a dozen members of Congress have decided that they already know what the public wants The Commerce Department released a survey about online commerce this week to give the public an easy electronic means of expressing their opinion...

Former U.S. Secretary of Education and two-time presidential candidate Lamar Alexander is entering the world of e-commerce as the founder and chairman of Simplexis.com, a Web site that is designed to help public schools save money by procuring goods and services online Alexander, who is also the President of the University of Tennessee, is kicking ...

E-tail giant Amazon.com has announced its third major promotional deal in roughly a week, bringing its tally to a tidy $332.5 million (US$) The latest deal, with home products and services retailer Living.com, is worth $145 million. Living.com will make payments over five years for the right to become the exclusive supplier of furniture, bedding, h...

In an effort to challenge Costco Online's stranglehold on the Internet wholesale club market share, New York-based HouseHold Direct.com has launched an online store with an aggressive discount pricing plan HouseHold Direct's new wholesale buying site includes products and services from nearly 1,000 manufacturers and distributors, and helps customer...

U.S. House of Representatives Policy Chairman Christopher Cox (R-California) announced Monday that he and Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) will mount a fresh challenge to Internet taxation this legislative session by introducing a new "Internet Non-Discrimination Act." The bill is the latest version of Cox and Wyden's Internet Tax Freedom Act III, whic...

In an effort to improve the upscale jewelry industry's relatively minimal use of the mass-merchandising nature of the Internet, 16 upscale brick-and-mortar jewelry manufacturers and retailers are joining together to sell their branded fine jewelry online The new site will be "sensitive to the specific concerns of the jewelry industry," according to...

Network hardware developer 3Com Corp. (Nasdaq: COMS) has announced plans to donate a total of $1 million (US$) in networking equipment and consulting services to 10 U.S. cities that are ready to implement programs to help minorities and low-income families access the Internet The cities to receive assistance from 3Com are Baltimore, Maryland; Charl...

Dash.com CEO Daniel Kaufman, a member of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Internet privacy panel, is urging his colleagues to back a plan to give online consumers access to information that is collected about them "Many consumers hesitate to participate in e-commerce opportunities because they fear they will leave a trail of personal information...

In what is starting to become the Internet's equivalent of the old brick-and-mortar cry of "location, location, location," e-commerce moving firm Move.com is paying $40 million (US$) to popular portal AltaVista for preferred space on their site The deal follows closely on the heels of Drugstore.com and auto-seller Greenlight.com paying a combined $...

eBay, Inc. has lined up Hong Kong-based China.com (Nasdaq: CHINA) to help market its new eBay Chinatown trading community to Asian users eBay, with its brand firmly established in the United States, hopes to improve its international recognition by taking advantage of the reach that China.com has established across Asia. eBay Chinatown features Asi...

In an effort to bring e-commerce and the Internet to a vast continent where computers have not yet become a mainstream business and consumer tool, Web site developer e-Media LLC announced a deal Wednesday to help launch a versatile site for the extended African community around the world The new site, Africast.com, will target consumers and busines...

With companies in nearly every industry developing online business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, a feeding frenzy of optimistic reports is coming from research firms to hail the major new market The latest report, from research firm GartnerGroup, projects that worldwide B2B e-commerce revenues will reach $7.29 trillion (US$) by 2004. This project...

In a letter that is bound to strain bipartisan cooperation on e-commerce issues, U.S. House Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley (R-Virginia) has taken President Clinton to task for his decision to ask for increased oversight of online drug vendors The letter upbraids Clinton for unilaterally making the proposal without waiting for the results of...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has announced the members of its new Advisory Committee on Online Access and Security. The 40 representatives of various public and private sector companies and organizations will spend five months exploring the impact of privacy and security policies on both online consumers and businesses...

Telemundo Network Group LLC, one of the most recognized Spanish-language TV networks in the United States, has announced a multi-million dollar (US$) strategic investment in Spanish-only e-tailer Espanol.com in an effort to target Hispanic consumers in North and Latin America As part of the deal, Espanol.com will receive "substantial" advertising o...