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The U.S. Department of Commerce is ready to let the public help shape its policy on electronic commerce, but more than a dozen members of Congress have decided that they already know what the public wants The Commerce Department released a survey about online commerce this week to give the public an easy electronic means of expressing their opinion...

Earlier this week, America Online became the latest e-commerce giant to be slapped with a class action lawsuit Filed Monday in the Eastern District Court of Virginia on behalf of subscribers, the lawsuit against the online giant alleges that some subscribers who installed the new AOL version 5.0 software encountered a bug that prevented them from u...

In a keynote address Thursday to the Variety Interactive Summit in San Diego, California, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) president and CEO Strauss Zelnick left no doubt that the Internet has become an unstoppable force in the music industry by labeling distribution via digital downloads as "the holy grail." "The explosion of consumer interest from d...

The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly investigating online auctioneer eBay, Inc. to determine whether its efforts to block price comparison search software from probing its Web site are anti-competitive Since the investigation by the department's antitrust division is in a preliminary stage, there is no indication that formal action against eBa...

Magic Software Enterprises (Nasdaq: MGIC) debuted the Enterprise Edition of its V.8 Linux development environment Thursday at the LinuxWorld Expo in New York City The software package, ported to Linux in collaboration with Mainsoft Corp., enables e-commerce professionals to quickly and economically develop online business solutions for the Linux op...

In an effort to increase security options for e-commerce professionals who run Linux, Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) announced this week that it has extended the functionality of its eTrust Access Control for UNIX security solution to support the Red Hat distribution of the open-source OS Expanding upon an earlier agreement, Com...

Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) reportedly announced today it has signed a deal with Japan's largest network of convenience stores to distribute PlayStation games sold on the Internet According to a Reuters report today, Japanese fun fans will be able to order a game online and collect it at their local 7-Eleven, a network of 8,000 convenience stores across ...

Former U.S. Secretary of Education and two-time presidential candidate Lamar Alexander is entering the world of e-commerce as the founder and chairman of Simplexis.com, a Web site that is designed to help public schools save money by procuring goods and services online Alexander, who is also the President of the University of Tennessee, is kicking ...

Charles Schwab & Co., the granddaddy of discount brokers, has all but suddenly changed roles from being the hunter to the hunted The company announced yesterday that it will acquire online brokerage CyBerCorp for $488 million (US$), and will also slash its trading rates to as low as $14.95 for higher volume customers.

An online fund-raising campaign has reportedly paid big bucks for U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) in his run for the Republican nomination in the upcoming presidential race, and his organizers are preparing for more via a live streaming fund-raiser on February 10th According to a report in the Wall Street Journal today, $150,000 (US$) in post-...

Separate reports released Wednesday by research firms GartnerGroup and Deloitte & Touche show that while security dangers at e-commerce sites are on the rise, many organizations are failing to develop clearly defined policies to cope with consumer vulnerability According to GartnerGroup, high-speed Internet services are making it easier for hackers...

IBM announced yesterday that a six-month experiment with five major record labels has successfully emulated a traditional music store online. According to the company, the store allows music to be downloaded, but prevents illegal copying The experiment, known as AlbumDirect, involved music giants BMG Entertainment, EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainme...

With an eye toward selling half of its air travel tickets online by 2003, British Airways has announced that it will cut 6,500 jobs over that three-year span Reportedly, the cuts are geared toward streamlining the operation, slashing costs and downsizing the business to jumpstart a sagging bottom line. The layoffs will shrink the current workforce ...

Leading Internet service provider (ISP) and e-commerce giant America Online has been slapped with a class action lawsuit on behalf of subscribers who installed the new AOL version 5.0 software and allegedly encountered a bug that prevented them from using other ISPs The lawsuit, filed January 31st in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, al...

Despite reporting a net loss of $323 million (US$) or 96 cents a share for the quarter ended December 31, 1999, e-tail giant Amazon.com has seen its stock shoot up $9-3/16 in mid-day trading Thursday to a price of $78-5/8 The stock price was buoyed by news that the company's quarterly revenues tripled to $676 million from $253 million a year earlie...

Online business security applications provider Diversinet Corp. (Nasdaq: DVNT) announced Tuesday that it has joined The Radicchio Initiative, an industry coalition that has been established to push public key infrastructure (PKI)-based wireless e-commerce security standards Diversinet, along with tech firms Giesecke & Devrient, Mitsui, Redknee, Sch...

At the opening of the LinuxWorld Conference in New York City this week, database titan Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) expanded its investment in Linux by announcing that its e-commerce enabling dot-com Suite is now available for the open-source operating system According to Oracle, over half of the Oracle8i downloads from its Oracle Technology Network...

Business-to-business (B2B) online trading community operator VerticalNet, Inc. has formed a joint European venture with global communications company British Telecommunications (BT) and venture capital fund Internet Capital Group (ICG) The joint venture, to be known as VerticalNet Europe, is funded with $227 million (US$) in cash and assets from th...

Editor's Note: This expanded coverage is brought to you as a follow-up to our story, Dot-Coms Betting Big Bucks on Super Bowl Sunday, which ran on January 28th, 2000 High-dollar TV spots seem to have boosted name recognition and business for first-time Super Bowl advertisers the same way a winning touchdown lifts the career of a rookie running back...

Kmart, the second-largest discount retail operation in the U.S., has announced that it will offer shares of its common stock directly to its 180 million shoppers on its recently-launched BlueLight.com Web site. Most stocks normally must be purchased from brokerages The first shares were offered yesterday through Kmart Stock Direct, which was develo...