Business

Portals and Internet service providers (ISPs) are going to start charging online marketers for the massive volume of e-mail being sent across the Web, according to a report released Wednesday by Jupiter Research. In 2005, advertisers are expected to send some 268 billion e-mail messages -- 22 ...

While still years from unveiling its next-generation game console, Sony apparently plans to make PlayStation 3 a gateway to the Internet and a means to leverage the company's far-flung entertainment holdings. Company executives have already begun to talk up the PS3 upgrades, though the product is ...

Quick: What do toysellers and drugstores have in common? At the moment, if their last name happens to be "dot-com," the answer is financial challenges. Online toyseller eToys can't pay its bills and Drugstore.com is severely trimming the staff, just as its chief financial officer steps down. Wha...

In a bid to cool the energy meltdown that ignited rolling power blackouts in California, Governor Gray Davis announced Tuesday that the state is going to hold an Internet auction to secure long-term, low-cost electricity contracts. "I expect these bids on long-term energy contracts should stab...

Despite grim market predictions about the Web advertising market, online ad impressions in December climbed 21 percent from November to reach a record high of over 65 billion ads viewed, according to a study released Monday by AdRelevance, a Jupiter Media Metrix company. Although online advertise...

Few U.S. companies currently use the Internet to purchase supplies, although most executives see the Web as an important part of their business in the future, according to a study released Monday by a trade organization. Most companies are "still in the early stages of Internet adoption," said t...

Floral e-tailer FTD.com (Nasdaq: EFTD) will report net income of US$2.3 million, or five cents per diluted share, for its fiscal 2001 second quarter -- the company's second consecutive quarter of profitability, FTD.com said Tuesday. The announcement comes at a time when sluggish sales and declining...

Despite Yahoo's decision three weeks ago to end auctions of Nazi artifacts on its Web site, a group of concentration camp survivors has sued Yahoo! chairman and chief executive officer Tim Koogle in France over the controversial auctions, according to published reports. The suit reportedly accus...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Monday that it had closed its year-long probe into the data collection and handling practices of DoubleClick, concluding that the Internet advertising firm did not violate its own privacy policy or engage in deceptive trade practices. The investi...

Growth of Canadian at-home traffic to retail Web sites almost leveled off in December, according to a study released Monday by Media Metrix Canada. Though 6.3 million people, or nearly half of all Canadians online, visited a retail Web site in December, that total represented a 3 percent increase fr...

Following one of the hottest trends in e-commerce, Internet grocer Webvan.com announced Monday it had joined forces with another e-tail site, in this case Petsmart.com, to open a pet store on the Webvan site. However, while other online partnerships have generated mutual benefits, there is some dou...

Following the announcement of staff layoffs and an executive departure last week, Drugstore.com on Monday reported a narrower than expected loss for the fourth quarter and that net sales for the fourth quarter of 2000 topped sales figures for all of 1999. Not impressed with the results, Wall ...

Although online retailers spent heavily last year to avoid the fulfillment and delivery difficulties that bedeviled Internet heavyweights and fledglings alike over the 1999 holiday season, a report released Monday found that these problems continued to haunt many Web merchants in 2000. Accordin...

Fresh off an impressive earnings report and a significant court victory, eBay said Monday it would expand its live auctions feature to give users access to items being sold at auction houses around the world. eBay said it would link with London-based Icollector.com to widen the reach of its Live Auc...

Web portal AltaVista announced Thursday that it is laying off 200 employees, or 25 percent of its workforce. The company said that the layoffs would primarily affect employees at the company's Palo Alto, California headquarters. AltaVista said its European offices would only be "minimally affected...