Business

Consumer electronics e-tailer Outpost.com reported a fourth quarter 2001 loss Thursday and said that it is considering a number of cost-cutting measures, as well as strategic alternatives. Outpost's stock lost more than 40 percent of its value Thursday, trading down 13 cents to 19 cents. The Ken...

The decision by urban-delivery pioneer Kozmo to abruptly shut down came after a frantic but failed attempt to find as little as US$3 million to sustain limited operations, according to a report published Friday. The VentureWire newsletter reported that Kozmo executives spent most of the past w...

Online delivery service Kozmo abruptly announced that it is shutting down Wednesday after nearly three years in business, leaving 1,100 people out of work in nine U.S. cities. Kozmo said the shutdown was effective late Wednesday and that all but a handful of employees, who would be kept on to ...

Internet giant Yahoo! announced after the markets closed Wednesday that it had met its own scaled-down expectations for the first quarter of 2001, but planned to lay off 12 percent of its workforce. The company also said that it expected a loss for the second quarter. The layoffs will affect app...

Privacy watchdog group TRUSTe issued guidelines Wednesday designed to address the issue of what happens to consumer information when a dot-com shuts down or merges with another company,. Currently in draft form, the guidelines say that the privacy policies instituted when a dot-com is in busine...

An elaborate Internet scam involving fake banking documents worth approximately US$3.9 billion has been shut down by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London-based ICC Commercial Crime Services announced Wednesday. According to the ICC, the fraud involved the use of fake European banki...

Businesses in Latin America are beginning to tap their e-commerce potential, according to data released Wednesday by the Yankee Group. The report, "Latin America's E-Builders," found that corporations throughout the region are investing an average US$1.2 million per project for Web development an...

Internet behemoth Amazon and brick-and-click bookseller Borders Group announced Wednesday that Amazon will take over Borders' online operations. The companies said that the Borders.com site will re-launch as a co-branded Amazon site in August. The new site will combine the selection of books, mus...

Autobytel announced Wednesday that it would acquire its struggling competitor Autoweb.com in a stock deal worth about US$15 million. The combined company will keep the Autobytel name. According to the companies, the combined venture will have annual revenues of approximately $100 million and wil...

In a bid to strengthen its international foothold, Yahoo! announced Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition of Australian online auction house Sold.com.au. Yahoo!, which is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings after the stock markets close Wednesday, did not reveal the purchase price...

Many financial institutions risk losing market share because they are concentrating too much on developing new online and wireless products, rather than improving the experience customers have on their existing Web sites, according to a report released Tuesday by Jupiter Media Metrix. The repor...

Although the current energy crunch has caused prices to surge and spurred a complex web of new laws and regulations, a report released Tuesday by Forrester Research found that online energy trading in wholesale markets continues to make "rapid growth," mushrooming 750 percent from 1999 to 2000. ...

In the age of streaming stock quotes, after-hours trading and 24-hour financial news coverage, many Wall Street analysts have become stars. From Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget to Anthony Noto of Goldman Sachs, stock analysts have become household names and financial power brokers. But are they...

The day after Amazon announced it would see a narrower-than-expected loss for the first quarter, shares of the e-tail giant continued their dramatic ascent in early morning trading Tuesday, rising more than $2.00, or 19 percent, to as high as $13.50 a share. But will such renewed optimism hold, or i...

MP3.com woke up to quite a shock Monday morning when the company was informed by a U.S. District Court that a US$300,000 copyright infringement award in favor of Tee Vee Toons (TVT) Records on Friday might actually be almost $3 million. According to published reports, the eight-member jury in th...