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In an attempt to test the waters before releasing his latest version of an Internet-only computer to the general public, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison is making the first 10 units available through an online auction The units are being auctioned as individually numbered "limited editions" through Amazon.com, with certificates of authenticity signed...

Canadian e-commerce welcomed a prominent player to the field when the country's oldest department store, Hudson's Bay, announced a joint venture to add an online component to its retail offerings Hudson's Bay, a 330 year-old company, will team with Microsoft Canada Co., IBM Canada Ltd. and Oracle Corp. to makes its move into the new economy. The th...

After a challenging investigation and trial, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has successfully shut down an Internet pyramid scheme that bilked consumers out of $2.9 million (US$) The fraudulent operation, Five Star Auto Club, Inc., operated a Web site that offered to lease to consumers their "dream vehicle" for free as they earned between $180 a...

Women's online network iVillage (Nasdaq: IVIL) ended months of speculation with the announcement that it is selling its iBaby e-commerce business to online rival Babygear.com, and closing two of its other e-commerce sites, iMaternity.com and PlusBoutique.com Turning away from e-commerce is another milestone in a difficult year for iVillage. The com...

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to implant a secret cyber-wiretap on the World Wide Web. Then you must search a giant's trash for proof of a conspiracy against the government. Finally, you are to launch a spy satellite to eavesdrop on the telephone and e-mail communications of an entire continent." No, this is not the opening of t...

Hoping to fend off government regulation of online privacy, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), a trade group that counts among its more than 300 members some of the most recognized names in cyberspace, has issued a set of privacy guidelines for companies doing business on the Internet While members are being encouraged to develop their own stan...

Although I may be a lone voice in the wireless wilderness, I still believe the personal computer is not only alive, but healthy as a horse Sorry, IBM, I am nowhere near ready to wear my computer. I want my machine on the desk where it belongs, or at the very least, in my briefcase. I will not wear it as a hat. I do not want it dangling from my neck...

Despite a lot of noisy consumer opposition to the junk e-mail unlovingly known as "spam," the practice of flooding in-boxes with unwanted marketing ploys continues unabated. In fact, even though there are now some state laws closely regulating spamming, the practice of sending mass unsolicited e-mails has acquired a sheen of respectability, and in some quarters is enthusiastically referred to as "sending an e-mail blitz."

Joining Microsoft and IBM who have made similar moves, America Online is betting that speech-recognition will soon become a key component of e-commerce transactions According to reports, AOL has invested $5 million (US$) to buy a one percent share in the privately held SpeechWorks International, an innovative Boston, Massachusetts-based company tha...

Amazon.com and Federal Express will take on one of the most significant e-commerce challenges to date on Saturday when they attempt to deliver a popular new children's book to 250,000 U.S. homes in a period of just a few hours The book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," has set a record for a first printing in the United States, with 3.8 milli...

The bells tolling in the e-commerce distance seem to be growing louder, but whether the ringing bodes ill is a matter of perception. For some dot-coms, the sound is surely a death knell, but for others, it is the tinkling of a carol In all the news reports about struggling and failing e-tailers, the same message is often buried somewhere toward the...

Multilingual Web sites are no longer an exotic luxury, but instead are a critical imperative in a rapidly shifting e-commerce world, according to a new report from Internet research firm Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) The report, entitled "The Multilingual Site Blueprint," said that 63 of the Fortune 100 Web sites are currently available in Engl...

Fighting for its life, online music swapping site Napster, rallied its legal defenses in an attempt to thwart a court challenge to shut it down. The company argued that its service was not anymore 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, Napster...

As e-tailers struggle to find their core user groups, many are increasingly shifting their focus to the fastest growing online population segment -- women Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research estimates 45 percent of online shoppers are female, and more than half of all consumers who made their first purchase in the second half of last ...

The Internet is often compared with the wild American west, and e-commerce seems to be the manifest destiny of early Web explorers In spite of the dangers from train robbers, cattle rustlers and assorted other scoundrels, early American settlers pressed westward to the Pacific, and the bad guys were unable to prevent the law abiding citizens from e...

For sale: Customer list of failed retail dot-com. Includes thousands of one-time customers from Christmas of 1999. Value to a rival dot-com striving for all-important market share: Considerable. Real cost in terms of lost faith among consumers in the privacy and security of e-commerce: Immeasurable. Price: Negotiable ...

Japanese electronics giants Sony (NYSE: SNE ), Matsushita, and Toshiba announced Monday that they are banding together to develop interactive services for digital television The new venture set to launch this fall will include a wide range of digital TV services such as tele-shopping and on-demand music and video games. The companies will join forc...

The purchase of RocketCash by free ISP NetZero last week is the latest evidence that e-commerce players are keen on capturing today's teenage Internet users and locking them up as tomorrow's customers And why not? Teens are free of the technology phobia that has kept others away from e-commerce. For them, life before the World Wide Web is not even ...

The Internet will become a faster, more powerful force in e-commerce as a result of an alliance between Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) and Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR), according to industry observers The companies agreed Thursday to combine technical and marketing resources in a three-year pact, which will merge Nortel's state-of-the-art, fiberopti...

The Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, and the American Library Association have launched a campaign to raise public interest in an election designed to ensure that individual Web users are not overwhelmed by government and corporate interests when it comes to governance of the Internet The upcoming election will fill five new seats...