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While European e-tailers are improving customer service, they still have a long road to travel when it comes to order fulfillment, according to a new study released by Andersen Consulting "Clearly, the issues that plagued online shopping in the U.S. last year plague Europe this year," said Robert Mann, an associate partner in Andersen Consulting's ...

When you go to the polls on Election Day, please remember that a vote for George W. Bush is a vote for closed Internet access It's true: a Bush presidency will mean pricier fees for access to high-speed Internet service. You'd be voting to widen the Digital Divide into a Grand Canyon.

If you're waiting to exhale until the U.S. government swoops in and saves the populace from the troubling Digital Divide problem, you'd better reconsider After all, the right answers rarely come from government, and certainly won't in this case. Government subsidies, tax breaks and block grants for poorer consumers are not the way to cure the probl...

Netopia, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTPA) plunged 2 1/4 to 9 3/16 Thursday after reporting fourth-quarter results that fell short of expectations. Analysts at several brokerage firms reportedly downgraded the stock The Alameda, California-based maker of Internet equipment and e-commerce Web platforms said revenue for the quarter ended September 30th rose a smal...

GoTo.com (Nasdaq: GOTO) was up 1 29/32 at 18 1/32 early Friday after the company announced an alliance with Terra Lycos (Nasdaq: TRLY) The three-year agreement could be worth "tens of millions of dollars," said GoTo, a Pasadena, California-based provider of pay-for-performance search, comparison shopping and auction services to Web sites.

NextCard, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXCD) rose 3 5/8 to 11 3/4 Thursday after the company, which issues consumer credit over the Internet, said it expects to grow at 75 percent per year over the next three years The company said revenue will reach $1 billion by 2003, with earnings rising to $150 million, or $2.83 per share. Assets under management at the end o...

Internet loyalty program marketer MyPoints.com (Nasdaq: MYPT) announced a third-quarter loss Thursday and said Steve Markowitz will step down as chairman and chief executive officer at the end of the year MyPoints reported a third-quarter loss before charges of $12.8 million (US$), or 36 cents per share, smaller than the 39 cents per share predicte...

Jack Welch has plenty of reasons to be confident. After all, he built General Electric into one of the world's largest companies, turning an appliance-maker into a defense giant and broadcasting powerhouse in the process. And the soon-to-retire Welch has written an impressive swan song for himself: a merger with Honeywell worth $45 billion (US$) So...

America Online (NYSE: AOL) said Thursday it has reached an agreement with General Motors (GM) and Daimler-Chrysler to provide discounted Internet and interactive TV service to the automakers' 300,000 employees The agreement gives AOL access to thousands of new customers for both its main online service and its fledgling AOLTV offerings. It also str...

Despite the gloom and doom of the ongoing dot-com shakeout, a new report from eMarketer predicts that U.S. online retail sales will grow from a projected $37 billion (US$) in 2000 to $125.6 billion over the next four years In addition, e-commerce revenues in 2000 are expected to almost double from the $19.4 billion recorded in 1999. According to th...

Beleaguered name-your-price e-tailer Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) announced Thursday that it is cutting 16 percent of its workforce and that its chief financial officer is departing The company also announced third-quarter losses of US$2 million, or a penny per share, and predicted that revenues would decrease in the fourth quarter....

Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP) was hovering around 3 17/32 early Thursday despite reporting a narrower-than-expected loss for the third quarter. The company said it expects to see a charge for recently announced cost cuts in the fourth quarter The Santa Monica, California-based online postage company said it lost $38.5 million, or 80 cents per share, be...

LookSmart (Nasdaq: LOOK) was up 17/32 at 8 15/16 early Thursday after the online directory and advertising company reported a smaller-than-expected loss for the third quarter, driven by a 151 percent rise in revenue from a year earlier to $33.4 million The company said its operating loss narrowed to $6.7 million, or 7 cents per share, from $17.3 mi...

BroadVisionInc. (Nasdaq: BVSN) rose 1 5/8 to 33 early Thursday after the company announced an e-business alliance with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) The two firms plan to develop and market products based on a combination of BroadVision's e-commerce software and Intel's servers.

VerticalNet, Inc. (Nasdaq: VERT) rose 1 7/64 to 29 Wednesday after the company said Sumitomo Corp. agreed to purchase $30 million of its common stock Under the agreement, the Japanese trading company will buy the stock in a private placement as part of an expanded relationship that may extend to the creation of a VerticalNet exchange in Japan. Sumi...

Listen.com said Wednesday it will buy the assets of bankrupt Scour, Inc., further accelerating the warming of relations between the major record labels and the file-sharing community San Francisco, California-based Listen.com, which distributes digital music and runs an Internet radio service, has the financial backing of all five major record labe...

A new privacy program, announced Wednesday by independent privacy watchdog TRUSTe, will make it easier for U.S. e-commerce companies to comply with European Union privacy laws The TRUSTe announcement came the same day that a safe harbor agreement reached several months ago between the U.S. and the 15-nation European Union took effect. That agreemen...

There's something slightly disappointing about Shawn Fanning's decision to go legit with Napster, but it's not exactly the same as David making nice with Goliath or Luke Skywalker going over to the Dark Side Napster CEO Fanning -- who is not yet old enough to buy a beer in most parts of the U.S. -- has managed to turn the music industry inside out ...

European companies are not aggressively capitalizing on the potential of electronic marketplaces for fear that they might face legal problems, according to a new study from Forrester Research The report, "eMarketplaces Face the Law," advises participants in online business-to-business (B2B) exchanges to insist on contracts that guarantee confidenti...

Ninety-one percent of those who made an online purchase in the past year plan to conduct e-commerce transactions this holiday season, according to a survey released Wednesday by Deloitte & Touche and the National Retail Federation (NRF) Researchers compiled their polling results in the annual "Mood Survey: Retail Holiday Outlook," which gauges over...