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It was either American humorist Mark Twain or British politician Benjamin Disraeli who said there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics. Considering that both gentlemen lived a century ago, it is amazing how applicable those words are today to the way industry analysts measure the success of e-commerce Web sites This week, USA T...

In another defeat for Microsoft, the federal judge who found the software giant in violation of federal antitrust laws and ordered a breakup of the company has sent its appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson on Tuesday agreed with the petition filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which argued...

Significantly changing the lay of the land for AOL Time Warner, Vivendi, Seagram and Canal+ have agreed to merge in a $34 billion (US$) all-stock deal The new Paris-based company, called Vivendi Universal, will combine the Canada-based Seagram's entertainment interests -- which include Universal Pictures and the Universal Music Group -- with Vivend...

Mammoth online services provider America Online announced Monday that it will roll out its much-anticipated interactive TV service this week in three U.S. cities, selling enhanced TV for $14.95 (US$) on top of the standard AOL monthly access fee With AOLTV, consumers in Baltimore, Maryland, Phoenix, Arizona, and Sacramento, California will be able ...

In a setback for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request that the court relinquish jurisdiction over the Microsoft antitrust case The DOJ had argued that Microsoft should not have taken its motion for a stay directly to the appeals court before the trial court had an oppo...

A panel of Information Technology (IT) experts commissioned by United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported Monday that urgent action is needed to slow the "digital divide" that is separating rich countries from poorer nations The panel said the United Nations should set a goal of allowing everyone in the world access to a computer and...

A year or so ago, an oft-aired television commercial showed a businessman driving along a dusty, empty road and then pulling over to the shoulder where a colleague waited -- a solitary figure in a barren landscape. This very spot, the businessman was told, was where the company should build its headquarters It would cost pennies a foot and it was o...

A report released Tuesday by Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) shows that the number of Japanese going online doubled in 1999, with more than one-third of the new Net surfers gaining access via wireless technology The Japanese government's survey found that one in five Japanese -- or about 27 million people -- now have Internet...

Just days after announcing that it would lay off some 15 percent of its workforce, online drugstore PlanetRx.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLRX) disclosed that an expensive agreement with a pharmacy benefits manager will lead to lower revenue for the second quarter and the remainder of fiscal 2000 Costs associated with an agreement with Express Scripts, Inc.

Canada-based Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP) announced plans Monday to develop a mobile Internet service that will initially focus on businesses with employees in remote locations Nortel, which has extensive wireless communications operations, and the San Jose-California-based HP said they will work on "mobile portal ...

Credit card giant Visa International has announced a pair of global e-commerce initiatives to offer tighter security measures for Internet consumers and reduce consumer-merchant online transaction disputes by as much as 50 percent According to the company, the first security initiative will reduce the risk of unauthorized credit card use, while the...

A report released Monday projects that online global advertising will swell from $4.3 billion (US$) last year to $28 billion by 2005, but that many companies are unprepared to take advantage of the surge Internet and e-commerce research firm Jupiter Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: JPTR) said that almost six percent of all global advertising revenue w...

America Online, Inc. took its first step toward allowing open access to its popular instant messaging (IM) system with the submission on Thursday of an 18-page proposal to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an industry panel that will eventually approve a standard for adoption The move comes a week after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (...

Viewed from any angle, immigration is a divisive issue. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the fence now have the power to sap considerable energy from the United States' high-tech fueled economy -- making immigration policies everyone's problem The critical issue is visas -- specifically those issued under the H-1B program, which allows i...

A group of 12 major Hollywood studios is asking a federal court to stop RecordTV.com from transmitting movies and TV shows over the Internet without acquiring distribution rights RecordTV.com, which enabled visitors to use its Web site as a VCR to record programs for viewing at a later time, immediately shut down its service pending resolution of t...

The disparity in Internet use among different ethnic groups in the United States is likely to "close significantly" within five years, according to a new study by New York-based research firm Jupiter Communications (Nasdaq: JPTR) Yet the biggest "digital divide" -- between rich and poor Americans -- is not likely to go away so soon, the study indic...

As federal regulators scrutinize its proposed merger with entertainment powerhouse Time Warner, Internet giant America Online (NYSE: AOL) is moving forward with plans to integrate the Web with non-PC technologies AOL unveiled a plan Thursday to enable Sprint PCS (NYSE: PCS) mobile phones to access the company's online services, just one day after a...

Latin American electronic commerce is poised to skyrocket to $15 billion (US$) by 2003, according to a new study by New York-based research firm eMarketer The report predicts that there will be about eight million active adult Internet users in Latin America by the end of this year, more than double last year's figure. That total is expected to gro...

Speaking before the American Antitrust Institute Conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Robert Pitofsky said that government enforcement of antitrust laws in the high-tech sector is critical to continued economic growth In opposition to the view that the U.S. government should adopt a hands-off poli...

Just one day after U.S. regulators charged more than 120 people in 11 states with online investment fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday shut down a "virtual stock exchange" that allegedly defrauded hundreds of investors across the country Lured by a promise to "double your money every month," the investors fell victim to...