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It was reported yesterday that Microsoft Corp. has asked the U.S. Congress to intercede on its behalf, as talks to settle the government's antitrust case against the software giant have failed to produce an agreement Reportedly, in a February 9th e-mail message to members of Congress, Microsoft lobbyist Kerry Knott pointed out that the company woul...

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno told the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary Wednesday that cracking down on cybercrime is "one of the most critical issues that law enforcement has ever faced." In a hearing titled "Cybercrime," Reno said, "I would simply say that we are taking the attacks very seriousl...

According to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc., all online sales should and will be taxed just like brick-and-mortar sales. "The buyer's physical location at the time he or she takes possession of the goods should determine sales tax liability," the report says. Currently, under what is known as "nexus," e-tailers are only required to colle...

New research data shows that women who regularly shop online are much more concerned than men about the safety of e-commerce after the recent spate of hacker attacks on such well known sites as eBay, Yahoo!, and CNN The poll data, from the eBrain division of the Consumer Electronics Association, shows that among the respondents, awareness of the at...

At a brief meeting with supporters from the computing community this week, President Bill Clinton laid out a plan for the U.S. government to respond to the national security threat that has been highlighted over the past two weeks by hacker attacks on popular Internet sites The strategy consists largely of Clinton's previously announced plan to com...

Controversial Internet advertising agency DoubleClick, Inc. disclosed Wednesday that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an inquiry into its methods of gathering and using information about online consumers Earlier this week, DoubleClick announced a public relations initiative, including an advertising campaign with 50 million banner im...

Lineo, Inc., formerly known as Caldera Thin Clients, has made a significant move on the burgeoning market for Internet access in the Asia-Pacific region by announcing strategic relationships with several Taiwan-based embedded system manufacturers The agreements, with Arima, Compal Electronics, First International Computer (FIC), Micro-Star, Mitac a...

Giant cinema chain Cinemark USA, Inc., which specializes in stadium-seating and IMAX theaters, announced Tuesday that it will expand selling tickets via the Internet to 14 Dallas, Texas-area theaters in the next few weeks The company said it already has been operating the service for the last two months in test mode at five of the theaters, includi...

Reports suggest that Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) will formally reject the Department of Justice's (DOJ) plans to break up the company, saying that the requirement is a "regulatory death sentence." Today's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said, however, that Microsoft is willing to concede on other points, acceding to "common sense" restrictions on its conduct to meet the DOJ's antitrust claims...

When controversial Internet advertising firm DoubleClick, Inc. unveiled its online privacy initiatives Monday, the company immediately received a cynical reception from privacy advocates In a public statement, Junkbusters Corp. president Jason Catlett blasted DoubleClick's self-policing actions by calling them "window dressing on their previous pos...

As the E-Commerce Times predicted last December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an investigation into whether e-tailers violated its Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule during the just-completed holiday shopping season While companies like Toysrus.com received far more publicity over late shipments, the FTC has zeroed in on eToy...

In an effort to jump-start e-commerce, the European Commission (EC) has warned European Union (EU) member governments that they must foster competition for local telephone lines that connect homes and businesses to the Internet by December, or be forced to do so The EC's stiff threat comes just one week before a scheduled hearing in Brussels on unb...

With an eye toward making online bill paying the norm rather than the exception, Internet billing and payments provider CheckFree Corp. announced Tuesday that it has forged a deal to buy TransPoint in a stock deal valued at well over $1 billion (US$) To acquire TransPoint -- which is owned by First Data Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Citibank -- CheckF...

The Cleo Products Group, an Interface Systems (Nasdaq: INTF) company that provides business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce communications tools, has joined the growing corporate migration to Linux by adding support for the open-source platform to its Cleo 3780Plus product Cleo 3780Plus, which will now work with Linux, UNIX and Windows, allows B2B e-c...

Online auto vendor Autobytel (Nasdaq: ABTL) announced today that it is forming a new venture to sell cars in Australia with a variety of well-known auto industry partners The Irvine, California-based company said it will take a 30 percent stake in Autobytel Australia, which is expected to launch by mid-year. Partners include St. George Bank; the Tr...

Last Friday, shares of online bookseller Fatbrain.com lost one-third of their value when three brokerage firms downgraded their investment rating on the stock Shares plummeted $6.87 to $13.87 (US$) on the Nasdaq Stock Market after an analyst call Thursday caused brokerages U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray and Banc of America Securities to lower their rat...

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba Corp. announced a $2.3 billion (US$) initiative Monday that will target electronic commerce and Internet content businesses The three-year investment will create i-Value Creation, a new arm of the company that is scheduled to debut on April 1st. The unit will focus on Internet-related services in the areas of fina...

America Online, Inc. has denied a claim by well-respected San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor that it is backing off its promise to support open access to broadband cable systems In a syndicated column, Gillmor wrote Monday that, "As several major news organizations have reported in recent days, AOL's commitment to open access has, ahem, ev...

Encouraging online shopping leads to declining loyalty, fewer referrals and lower profits as users negotiate Web sites that "would give Kafka pause," according to a report conducted by a Canadian research firm A report today in the Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper said the findings run contrary to the generally accepted view that online retailing wil...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and National Association of Attorneys General have banded together with other government agencies to aggressively seek out and prosecute perpetrators of online auction fraud The new Internet fraud initiative was unveiled Monday, on the first day of Nation...