Articles by Paul A. Greenberg

If there is a single issue that threatens to stop e-commerce development in its tracks, it is the issue of which country has jurisdiction over disputes concerning cross-border electronic transactions The technology design that drives electronic commerce does not recognize things like cultural differences, governmental wranglings and border conflict...

Some of the undergraduate college students I teach missed class the other night. I'm guessing that it was not a coincidence that they skipped out the day aU.S. federal court had signaled the imminent shutdown of Napster My best guess is that some of them were making their lastdesperate downloads of free music from the onlinemusic sharing service be...

It seemed like the perfect solution for overworked, time-deprived 21st century consumers -- online grocers to the rescue Even a year ago, the revolutionary prospect of selling perishables and food online held promise.

Successful Old Economy players often say, "Be careful about the guy who says he's got so much business he can't take on any new clients." Internet consultants used to brag about their fortunes, both financial and in numbers of clients -- until the bottom fell out of their business. It was an adventurous flight while it lasted, with bountiful sums o...

Think Free! Free delivery. Free samples. Buy one, get one free. Free ISPs. Free prizes. Such no-charge perks of online shopping have become staples of the Internet economy, even though we all know there's no such thing as a free lunch. What made us believe we could change that axiom with a few keystrokes?...

E-commerce has hit a dangerous curve because the venture capitalists who were driving it have found the freeway off-ramp According to the National Venture Capital Association, venture capitalists have decreased their investments across the U.S. a whopping 31 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2000. In contrast, for the previous...

The closing of Lucy.com's Web site last month happened so quickly and quietly that it might have gone unnoticed in the annals of E-Commerce History Except for one thing. Those who still love Lucy's sportwear can still go to the real-world store in Manhattan's Crunch gym. That gives Lucy the distinction of being a business founded on the Internet th...

The closing of Lucy.com's Web site last month happened so quickly and quietly that it might have gone unnoticed in the annals of E-Commerce History Except for one thing. Those who still love Lucy's sportwear can still go to the real-world store in Manhattan's Crunch gym. That gives Lucy the distinction of being a business founded on the Internet th...

The closing of Lucy.com's Web site last month happened so quickly and quietly that it might have gone unnoticed in the annals of E-Commerce History Except for one thing. Those who still love Lucy's sportwear can still go to the real-world store in Manhattan's Crunch gym. That gives Lucy the distinction of being a business founded on the Internet th...

The great thing about American industry is that it only takes one courageous, motivated individual to start a revolution. If you have several courageous, motivated individuals, so much the better When employees of Etown.com, an electronics content site, decided to organize a vote for unionization, a number of e-commerce executives around the countr...

Of the traditions we're most proud of, identity theft and credit card theft will likely not make the cut Still, it's getting to be a habit. Last year began with 2,500 credit card numbers being exposed at seven e-commerce sites. This year, before we could even turn one calendar page, online travel giant Travelocity inadvertently exposed thousands of...

While other dot-com businesses falter and stall one by one, Web sites in the e-travel sector keep on flying. There are a number of reasons for the online travel triumph, but mostly it has to do with the fact that booking travel reservations was computerized long before being computerized was de rigeur. The Sabre reservation system, for example, w...

Last summer, when now former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN Act), it seemed we were about to scale the next digital mountain Conceivably, from that point on, Internet users would be able to enter into contracts and seal the deal electronically. No exchanges of pleasantries, n...

Quick: What do toysellers and drugstores have in common? At the moment, if their last name happens to be "dot-com," the answer is financial challenges. Online toyseller eToys can't pay its bills and Drugstore.com is severely trimming the staff, just as its chief financial officer steps down....

Anyone who has ever worked in sales knows what separates the winners from the slackers is The Big Get It's all about closing the sale, reeling them in. It comes down to one part psychology, one part manipulation and one part luck.

Last week, one of America's legendary rebels threw his consumer watchdog hat in the e-commerce ring. He's Ralph Nader, a consistently strong voice for the American consumer and a formidable opponent of corporate America This time, though, Nader's target is the entire e-commerce industry, a movement he believes needs a Big Brother. According to Nade...

Right now, online commerce and offline commerce are trying to work out how much they need one another -- in kind of the same way The Odd Couple would Cue voice-over: "Can two kinds of retailers share a consumer market without driving each other crazy?" ...

Right now, online commerce and offline commerce are trying to work out how much they need one another -- in kind of the same way The Odd Couple would Cue voice-over: "Can two kinds of retailers share a consumer market without driving each other crazy?" ...

Right now, online commerce and offline commerce are trying to work out how much they need one another -- in kind of the same way The Odd Couple would Cue voice-over: "Can two kinds of retailers share a consumer market without driving each other crazy?" ...

Those magic words "Click Here" mean different things to different people To consumers, they are often just a way to instantly satisfy their curiosity about what lies behind a flashy, seductive banner ad....