Business

One of the first file-sharing lawsuits to go to trial could be concluded Thursday, and while the case is being closely watched, the Recording Industry Association of American said it will continue to pursue legal action against alleged music pirates regardless of the outcome. Attorneys for the RIAA ...

A federal district court judge issued two landmark decisions Tuesday in a nationwide class action suit against Target charging that the retail giant has "failed and refused" to make its Web site accessible to the blind. Brought by the National Federation of the Blind, the suit charges that by failin...

Three years after Sony Music Entertainment and BMG Entertainment finalized their Sony BMG joint venture, antitrust regulators from the European Union have again cleared the music industry deal. The decision followed a court-ordered review of the impacts on small record labels. European Commissioner ...

Adobe Systems is buying the maker of the Buzzword Web-based word processing software, marking a shift in strategy for the maker of Flash and Acrobat and setting up a showdown over Internet-based applications with the likes of Microsoft and Google. Adobe will purchase Waltham, Mass.-based Virtual Ubi...

Handheld device maker Palm saw its stock take a hit after reporting a fiscal loss for its first quarter and issuing a weaker-than-expected forecast that suggests it is struggling to regain ground lost to rivals such as Research In Motion and Apple and as it shifts its focus to lower-cost devices. Pa...

With the current ban on Internet access taxes due to expire on Nov. 1, tensions rose last week when a move to extend the ban stalled in the Senate. The Internet tax ban has been in place since 1998, having last been renewed in 2004 for another three years. Last Thursday the Senate Commerce Committee...

In a move that further complicates the rapidly changing digital music world, alt-rock group Radiohead plans to make its next album available for direct download from its Web site without a fixed price. Radiohead said users can give what they think is a fair amount in exchange for the digital downloa...

eBay shook up the top management of its Skype peer-to-peer communications unit Monday, removing its cofounder as CEO and saying it will take a $1.43 billion charge in the coming quarter to cover the cost of incentives in the original acquisition deal and to reflect lower overall value for the unit.

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, has agreed to buy navigation specialist Navteq, a deal that Nokia says will help it expand its business into location-based Internet services. The Finnish phone giant will pay $8.1 billion for the Chicago-based company, pending regulatory and shareholde...

Digital photo frame products surfaced briefly during 1999 to 2001 and created significant market buzz, but not meaningful sales. Subsequently, two out of the six vendors, Digi-Frame and Weave Innovations, went out of business; Sony and Kodak exited the market, and VideoChip scaled back and changed f...

After a summertime lull, the private equity buyout trend returned to the tech sector Friday with networking systems maker 3Com agreeing to be bought by Bain Capital, with a minority stake going to China's largest networking company. Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com -- which was at the forefront of the ...

As of this writing, the financial markets are in turmoil due to extremely high delinquencies on so-called sub-prime mortgages. These are the mortgages made in the last few years by aggressive mortgage banking companies that were able to "bundle" the risky debts into packages and then sell them to mu...

SpiralFrog.com, a free music download site that launched on Sept. 17, allows registered users to download more than 800,000 songs and videos. As long as downloaders keep renewing their free monthly site registration, they can continue to play the song and video files on their PC. Users can also copy...

Google and Microsoft squared off as usual Thursday, but this time instead of the competitive battlefield, they met on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are weighing the question of whether Google's purchase of DoubleClick will create an unfair online advertising monopoly. Representatives of both compani...

Hoping to burnish its image as an eco-friendly company, Dell said Thursday it would strive to become the first carbon-neutral maker of personal computers and other technology gear. Dell plans to become carbon neutral in 2008, a year earlier than it had previously forecast, it said. The company is co...