Business

Leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries gathered in Singapore on Friday to sign the e-ASEAN accord, urging member nations to make e-commerce safe and effective for consumers, to establish high-speed Internet connections, and to approve digital signature legislation. Association of Southeast Asi...

Online retailers are providing better customer service than their brick-and-mortar counterparts, according to the third quarter American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released Monday. Overall, e-commerce scored 73.2 on the index, though there were significant variances among the different se...

Asian Internet users are taking to e-commerce much slower than their American counterparts, according to a report released Monday by research firm NetValue.

E-Stamp Corp. said Monday it will phase out its online postage business to concentrate on Internet-based shipping and logistics. As part of the plan, the Mountain View, California-based company said it will cut about 30 percent of its jobs. E-Stamp president and chief executive officer Robert (Bo) ...

Commerce One, Inc. (Nasdaq: CMRC)was up 3 1/16 at 42 5/16 early Monday after the company announced a pushinto Korea with a new online marketplace for businesses in the region. The new GTWeb Korea will be the country's first online marketplace forbusiness-to-business (B2B) e-commerce that provides "a...

Amazon.com was unavailable to shoppers briefly Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year in the United States. The e-tailer downplayed the effects of the outage, saying that it lasted only about 30 minutes and that it was not caused by an overload of visitors. However, the glitch's occur...

Internet Capital Group, Inc.(Nasdaq: ICGE) gained 2 3/32 to 8 5/32 Friday after directors adopted ashareholder rights plan designed to discourage hostile takeover attempts. The Wayne, Pennsylvania-based holding company for Internet businesses saidshareholders will receive a dividend of one right for...

Maybe we should be worried about the FBI's Carnivore electronic surveillance system, especially if it's true that Carnivore enables the FBI to read and store our e-mail -- that, in effect, the Feds could easily start electronic files on us. Here's the problem: Join the crowd. Most of our electronic...

Someday, when the entire online world is wired with high-speed connections, perhaps the home page at Amazon.com will make us really feel the holiday shopping spirit online. Maybe the site will play Christmas carols -- customized for each visitor of course, based on past purchases and online behavior...

Specialized "niche" travel Web sites that offer in-depth information on selected destinations are doing a better job of meeting consumers' needs than their mega-site counterparts, according to a new survey of 6,580 travel site visitors by cPulse. The research firm also found that the attention n...

Approximately 95 percent of Australian children aged 5 to 14 have used a computer in the past 12 months, and 47 percent have accessed the Internet over the past year, according to a report released Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. As of August, some 3.7 million households, or 53 pe...

Online subscription music service EMusic unveiled a new initiative on Tuesday that it said will "prevent the illegal distribution of EMusic songs" by users of Napster's controversial music file-swapping service. Using "acoustic fingerprinting," Redwood City, California-based EMusic will identify...

Despite a string of well-publicized financial reversals, name-your-own price e-tailer Priceline.com has agreed to forgive a US$3 million loan it extended to a former top executive and will incur a roughly $3.3 million charge in the fourth quarter as a result. According to published reports, the ...

B2bstores.com (Nasdaq: BTBC) fell5/32 to 1 3/16 Tuesday after the company agreed to be acquired bymedical-supply company Ivax Corp. (AMEX:IVX). B2b stores, which sells industrial supplies including food-service and janitorialequipment online, will give Ivax 20 million newly issued common shares asth...

Looking to pave the way for future growth in a largely untapped region, AOL Latin America formally launched a portal Wednesday with content aimed at Internet users in countries including Venezuela, Chile and Colombia. The regional portal, which will feature content in Spanish and Portuguese, is des...