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Internet companies disclosed plans to cut 1,193 jobs in August, fewer than in July but enough to mark the second straight month in which dot-com layoffs exceeded 1,000, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Is it a trend? It's too early to tell," CEO John A. Challenger told the E-Commerce Times. "There is certainly the pote...

Online advertising giant DoubleClick has announced it will pay US$450,000 and revamp its business practices to end a privacy investigation launched nearly three years ago by the attorneys general of 10 states Over the course of the inquiry, investigators sought to discern whether DoubleClick misused personal information gleaned from consumers and, ...

Amazon.com has once again cut by half the amount shoppers must spend to qualify for its Super Saver free shipping offer, further escalating the price war it began early this year. The minimum order size for free shipping is now US$25, down from $49. Amazon described the move as a "long-term test of customer response" that will last at least three ...

The DVD industry is no stranger to significant infighting over formats, withmanufacturers supporting one of two rival standards, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW. And itappears that the standards battle will drag on for the foreseeable future In thelatest maneuver, Toshiba and NEChave announced that they are planning to introduce a new format for next-generat...

In a rare piece of e-commerce venture funding news, SmartBargains said it has received a US$9 million cash infusion as the online bargain retailer seeks to reach more Web shoppers. The Boston, Massachusetts-based company, which had secured $47 million in total venture funding to date, also announced expanded marketing deals with MSN and AOL. Those...

For all the financial reeling and corporate belt-tightening in many e-commerce sectors, experts say no tears need be shed for the online porn industry. While exact revenue figures are tough to unearth, established players have not been significantly hurt by current economic woes, though competition in the space has intensified Indeed, IDC research ...

Negotiations have broken down between Texas Instruments and Korean chipmaker-for-hire Dongbu Electronics, dashing Dongbu's hopes oflanding a US$400 million annual contract with the technology giant If Dongbu and Texas Instruments had reached an agreement, the Korean company would have sold $400 million worth of chips to Texas Instruments. In additi...

Microsoft has stepped up what promises to be an interesting battle with AOL by planning to offer its MSN subscription service to users of Apple's Mac OS X operating system The announcement comes shortly after AOL opted to use Netscape browser technology, rather than Internet Explorer, in its new version for the Mac. At the time, analysts noted that...

PayPal has agreed to pay a US$200,000 fine and to stop taking betting payments from New York residents by the end of the month as part of an agreement reached with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer Spitzer said the fine represents "disgorged profits" that PayPal made from processing gaming payments, a penalty fine and the cost of the investigati...

Meet the new rules of e-commerce. Turns out, they are the same as the old rules. As online retailing enters the early stages of maturity and profitability becomes the rule rather than the exception, e-businesses might find they need only reset their goals rather than alter their entire approach.

AOL Time Warner has inked a deal that calls for AT&T and Comcast to relinquish their minority interest in Time Warner Entertainment (TWE) division for as much as US$9 billion, according to published reports. The agreement paves the way for a possible IPO of AOL's cable arm in 2003, and ends speculation about the unit's immediate future Beset by fin...

AOL Time Warner has inked a deal that calls for AT&T and Comcast to relinquish their minority interest in Time Warner Entertainment (TWE) division for as much as US$9 billion, according to published reports. The agreement paves the way for a possible IPO of AOL's cable arm in 2003, and ends speculation about the unit's immediate future Beset by fin...

AOL Time Warner has inked a deal that calls for AT&T and Comcast to relinquish their minority interest in Time Warner Entertainment (TWE) division for as much as US$9 billion, according to published reports. The agreement paves the way for a possible IPO of AOL's cable arm in 2003, and ends speculation about the unit's immediate future Beset by fin...

Hotels.com's offices were evacuated Tuesday and its stock suffered a sharp drop after a white powdery substance was discovered in the company's mailroom. Local authorities in McAllen, Texas, ordered the evacuation of the Hotels.com processing center -- where about 100 people process reservations made through the site -- as well as a nearby department store...

Few things are more gratifying for fans of e-commerce than seeing a traditional company -- especially a muscular, dominant company -- break into a cold sweat over the possibilities of online retail That is why so many people should be thrilled by Netflix, which is threatening to do to Blockbuster what Blockbuster did to the neighborhood video store...

Just as MTV changed the face of music, technology has resculpted the public relations landscape, improving some aspects of the field and creating a number of challenges as well Calling technology both "a blessing and a curse," Jon Lavietes, an account executive at public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard, told the E-Commerce Times that "innovations ...

The U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) has determined that states are losing out on millions of dollars in unpaid excise taxes because of online cigarette sales. This realization comes after the Federal Trade Commission got wise a few weeks ago that the government might be able to do more to grease the works for an e-commerce takeoff It's nice...

Cisco Systems on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire privately held Andiamo Systems, which develops intelligent storage switching products for the storage area networking (SAN) market. The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by the networking giant, and it marks Cisco's first foray into the high-growth SAN switching market. Resear...

EBay and PayPal have announced that their antitrust waiting period -- a time during which the U.S. Department of Justice can ask for additional information from either company -- has expired without government regulators making a second request for more information. That so-called "second request" is often a sign that DOJ regulators are taking a c...

As competition heated up during the summer, both the travel and computer hardware sectors saw an uptick in online sales, according to comScore Networks, which has purchased Web traffic measurement firm Media Metrix Overall, online consumer sales increased to US$6 billion, a 26 percent increase from July 2001. Travel services performed even better, ...