Business

Citing information from documents obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Freedom of Information Act, a civil liberties group this week alleged the federal agency has had chronic problems with its use of anti-terror letters to collect personal information about American citizens....

Motorola's second-quarter results will miss already lowered expectations as overseas sales fell short of targets, the company said, ratcheting up the pressure on CEO Ed Zander to jolt the troubled mobile handset maker from its prolonged funk. Motorola also backed off an earlier forecast that its mob...

Time Warner's AOL has reached a settlement with 48 states attorneys general that calls for the online service to pay $3 million, offer refunds to some customers and make it easier for people to cancel service in the future. The settlement was announced late Wednesday, and culminates years of complai...

In what could be a blow to rival social networking sites, venture capital firm Bay Partners on Wednesday launched a program to fund developers who write applications specifically for Facebook. Dubbed the "AppFactory," the program will grant awards of $25,000 to $250,000 to Facebook developers using ...

Michael Capellas, the former CEO of PC maker Compaq and long-distance company MCI, has been tapped to lead First Data after the payment processing firm's planned private equity buyout is completed. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. plans to complete its takeover of First Data -- valued at $29 billio...

Amazon.com began offering users of the TiVo digital video recorder the opportunity to purchase and download movies directly from their television sets, a move that takes the personal computer out of the Web-based download equation for the first time. TiVo and Amazon first announced a partnership in ...

Chipmaker Intel has acquired a minor ownership stake in EMC's VMware software unit, a move that comes as the storage company readies its fast-growing server virtualization subsidiary for an initial public offering. Intel Capital, the company's venture investment arm, backed VMware with $218.5 millio...

Samsung and Ericsson have agreed to end patent infringement lawsuits against each other, signing an agreement to cross-license their mobile technologies instead. The cross-licensing agreement covers a host of patents relating to second- and third-generation, or 2G and 3G, mobile services. South Kore...

Google will buy on-demand Web security provider Postini for $625 million in cash, a move that the search giant hopes will help lower a key hurdle to broader adoption of its on-demand, Web-based applications targeted at business users. Privately held Postini serves some 35,000 businesses around the w...

Sony has no plans to cut the price of its PlayStation 3 consoles, Sony President Ryoji Chubachi reportedly said, despite hints from the electronics giant that it might do so in order to rev up disappointing sales figures. The price point for the PS3 has long been seen as a sticking point for greater...

Microsoft will open a software development center in Canada by the end of the year, a move that will enable the software giant to hire more foreign workers without running up against the limitations of U.S. immigration law. The center will be located in Vancouver, British Columbia, less than three h...

It is quite common for people affiliated with a startup to receive Rule 144 stock in lieu of cash or readily tradable stock. This type of stock is usually issued by a company that is either about to go public or has recently gone public. Rule 144 stock is often used as a form of reimbursement for se...

With Nintendo's Wii continuing to set the pace for gaming console sales, Microsoft said it is planning an Oct. 11 launch date in Japan for its Xbox 360 Elite -- a high-end version of the console that features a 120-gigabyte hard drive, a high-definition TV interface and other advanced capabilities.

After years of waiting and lobbying, Research In Motion has finally won governmental approval to sell its BlackBerry mobile e-mail devices to users in China. The company is preparing to start selling its handheld devices in China as soon as the end of August, and it has approximately 5,000 presale o...

A U.S. subsidiary of Germany's SAP made "inappropriate downloads" of documents from the Web site of rival Oracle, SAP acknowledged, but the company denied the actions represented corporate espionage. In response to a suit filed by Oracle in March, SAP said its division TomorrowNow was authorized to ...