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With an eye toward becoming one of the first online travel services to show a profit, Travelocity.com (Nasdaq: TVLY) reported a stronger-than-expected second quarter Wednesday and declared that it expects to turn a profit by the end of 2001 The Fort Worth, Texas-based company said it lost $4.2 million (US$) or 26 cents per share during the second q...

Online media company CNET Networks, Inc., which provides information on tech products, news, and television programming, has agreed to acquire Ziff-Davis' tech news site ZDNet for $1.6 billion (US$) in stock CNET will also absorb Ziff-Davis' Computer Shopper, a business-to-consumer technology publication, and Smart Planet, an online educational ser...

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is scrambling to keep users from being affected by the latest security flaw in its software, an opening that could allow malicious users to take over other computers The flaw in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express software was discovered by two separate researchers, one in Australia and the other in South America. T...

The high-tech economy spawned a new breed of the super-wealthy by appealing to the gambling lust of some very smart and extremely ambitious people. They made their fortunes not through blood, sweat and tears, but through stock options. Some of the billionaires thus created are worth a few billion dollars (US$) less now that the high-tech frenzy seems to have rolled to a more manageable pace -- if not quite a halt...

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).

In an apparent effort to keep pace with other portals that offer e-commerce storefronts to small businesses, NBC Internet (Nasdaq: NBCI) said Tuesday it will partner with Bigstep.com to assist companies in building Web sites, developing catalogs and accepting credit cards The move, designed to help small businesses "get into the e-business fast lan...

Do you remember the incredible thrill you felt the first time you hooked up to the World Wide Web? Think back. Can you recall that feeling of -- for lack of a better word -- connection? That sense of being part of something so vast, so global, so post-modern? Great. Now, those of you who answered yes, can you remember the incredible irritation you ...

A new report by Forrester Research predicts that an emphasis on infrastructure and high-level services will allow online pharmacies to emerge as e-commerce success stories over the next two years "Forrester believes that online pharmacies will rise to the challenge of selling prescription drugs online -- ringing up $15 billion (US$) in sales in 200...

Undaunted by the criticism and controversy surrounding Napster, the Internet music-sharing company they founded, Bill Bales and Adrian Scott have announced the impending launch of AppleSoup, a venture that will bring Hollywood into the age of file-swapping While necessarily tight-lipped about the exact nature of the content to be offered through th...

The White House and other U.S. government officials say they are working to give Internet users the same level of protection against "wiretapping" that they currently have when talking on the telephone The Clinton administration indicated Monday it would propose legislation to clear up the legal confusion surrounding government surveillance into pr...

With the recent vote by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to expand the number of top level domains (TLDs) on the Internet, some e-tailers may be asking not only if a rose by any other domain name will smell as sweet -- but also whether its price will be as steep The Marina del Rey, California-based ICANN has been over...

The burgeoning online gambling industry won a political victory Monday when a bill to ban online casinos failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives. A similar bill has already been passed in the Senate Although lawmakers voted 245-159 in favor of the measure, it fell 25 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval, according to ...

Online advertising campaigns result in significantly more traffic to e-tail Web sites and attract attentive visitors who are likely to linger, according to new research by Media Metrix (Nasdaq: MMXI) division AdRelevance The five-month study, conducted from January to May, is likely to be good news for e-commerce companies looking for the appropria...

Despite a five-year extension of the U.S. moratorium on Internet taxation, support for taxing online purchases appears to be gaining strength among legislators and consumers Individual U.S. states in particular are keeping a watchful eye on steadily increasing Internet sales, out of concern over the amount of sales tax revenue they are losing as mo...

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is not impressed with the defense offered by Napster that its service is no more 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, the RIAA called Napster's position "meritless." The RIAA's brief was ...

"Free" always begs the question: What's the catch? The prospect of something-for-nothing usually causes a tingle of excitement that is followed by a predictable letdown when the natural law, "You get what you pay for," kicks in In its early days, the World Wide Web -- responsible for so many paradigm shifts -- seemed to provide the means for a radi...

A friend of mine -- who is very good at finding the dark side of every bright picture -- firmly believes that in the midst of the United States' longest run of peacetime prosperity, we are faced with the sad truth that customer service is dead In their haste to meet rapidly increasing customer demand, companies are producing lower quality stuff. An...

Because notorious cybercriminal Kevin Mitnick is barred under the terms of his plea agreement from touching a computer -- much less a computer connected to the Internet -- he is going to need some help submitting the online column he has been hired to write for Contentville.com But what's an extra personal assistant or two for a Web writer? Mitnick...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Sunday formally voted to expand the number of top level domains (TLDs) on the Internet and invite potential registrars to submit plans for additional Web suffixes that could be in operation by early next year The resolution -- which was passed unanimously by ICANN's 19-member board ...

Online retail giant Amazon.com rebounded mightily from a protracted slump Friday, just in time to celebrate its fifth birthday The company's stock sank at the end of June after Lehman Brothers analyst Ravi Suria described Amazon's credit as "extremely weak and deteriorating," but a report on Friday from Salomon Smith Barney analyst Tim Albright tri...