Business

"Free" always begs the question: What's the catch? The prospect of something-for-nothing usually causes a tingle of excitement that is followed by a predictable letdown when the natural law, "You get what you pay for," kicks in.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is not impressed with the defense offered by Napster that its service is no more illegal than using a VCR to record television shows. In a brief filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the RIAA called Nap...

Despite a five-year extension of the U.S. moratorium on Internet taxation, support for taxing online purchases appears to be gaining strength among legislators and consumers.

Online retail giant Amazon.com rebounded mightily from a protracted slump Friday, just in time to celebrate its fifth birthday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Sunday formally voted to expand the number of top level domains (TLDs) on the Internet and invite potential registrars to submit plans for additional Web suffixes that could be in operation by early next year.

Because notorious cybercriminal Kevin Mitnick is barred under the terms of his plea agreement from touching a computer -- much less a computer connected to the Internet -- he is going to need some help submitting the online column he has been hired to write for Contentville.com.

Controversy continued to mount Thursday over the issue of Internet gambling, which appeared headed for a U.S. government ban earlier this week. A vote on a pending House of Representatives bill could come as early as next week.

Webvan Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBVN) has reported that its aggressive expansion plan resulted in steeper losses for the second quarter when compared with a year earlier, even as revenue surged.

Lloyd's of London has demonstrated a knack for attracting attention to itself ever since it got its start insuring ships carrying tea back to England. By underwriting the creative hands of artists, the delicate fingers of piano players, Betty Grable's gams or Jennifer Lopez' derriere -- often for as...

More Americans than ever are using the Internet to shop for and purchase new cars, according to a new survey from research firm GartnerGroup.

As part of the industry-wide effort to make e-commerce more secure, credit reporting giant Equifax, Inc. has announced plans to positively identify online shoppers through quizzes based on their credit reports.

Excite@Home reported that it already signed up more than a thousand new e-tailers within the first 24 hours of launching its new free online storefront service. The new offering, named "Freetailer," allows e-commerce newcomers to get a foot in the door by enabling them to set up an Internet store at...

The governing body for Internet domain names is meeting this week in Japan to draw up its blueprint for expanding the choice of Web site names available to the general public. However, the question remains whether simply allowing more alternatives to the ".com" suffix will solve the naming system's ...

In a bid to expand its presence in the burgeoning wireless market, e-commerce portal Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) is purchasing wireless e-tailer Telstreet.com for about $7.9 million (US$) in stock.

Responding to defunct online toy retailer Toysmart.com's attempt to sell its customer records, two U.S. Senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to block the sale of consumer information on the Internet.