E-Commerce

Netflix and YouTube together now account for more than half of all North American fixed network data traffic during peak hours, according to a Sandvine Internet traffic trends report published Monday. Netflix now accounts for 31.6 percent of downstream traffic in North America, while YouTube account...

Google and the European Commission's delicate negotiations on a settlement regarding the search engine giant's alleged antitrust violations this week hit an unusual snag: The terms of Google's second offer were outed on Wednesday, opening them up to unexpected public scrutiny. The new offer -- inclu...

Finally the barge mystery has been solved -- but the answer for some is a bit deflating. That four-story barge floating on San Francisco Bay -- not to mention others in three additional cities, including Portland, Maine -- has whipped tech observers into a frenzy because of its clear but uncertain l...

Dish Network on Wednesday announced that it will close its 300 remaining Blockbuster stores by early January and will end its Blockbuster By Mail service by mid-December. The company cited increased competition from digital and on-demand entertainment. Dish acquired Blockbuster in April 2011 for $32...

AT&T and Verizon have quietly been building a strong TV business. In fact, I read last week that where they offer service, they have almost the same market share as the cable television company leaders like Comcast, Time Warner and Cox. That's an incredible accomplishment. Telecom is changing. I...

Amazon on Wednesday announced a new program that will enable independent bookshops and other small retailers to earn extra money by selling Kindle devices and accessories. Dubbed "Amazon Source," the program gives retailers a discount on Kindles and accessories for resale as well as 10 percent of th...

Mammoth tomes about high-tech entrepreneurs with a secretive bent are almost a sure bet to stir up a hornet's nest of controversy when they're published. That's certainly been the case with Brad Stone's The Everything Store about CEO Jeff Bezos and Amazon. The twist here is that the critic in the po...

T-Mobile U.S. ended its third quarter of 2013 with roughly a million more customers than it had at the end of the preceding quarter, it announced in an earnings report on Tuesday. Included among those new customers were 648,000 branded postpaid net customers for the quarter. T-Mobile now counts 45 m...

Google on Monday introduced a new social media feature called Helpouts, a real-time channel that's designed to let businesses and individuals give and get help over live video. Powered by Google's Hangouts video chat platform, Helpouts can be used to offer instruction in a wide range of areas, from ...

A consortium of technology companies is suing Google and Android manufacturers in its first patent lawsuits after it outbid the search giant for thousands of patents previously owned by Nortel. Rockstar, owned by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson, Sony and EMC, has accused Google of infringing ...

Amazon has launched AmazonSmile, a program that will allow shoppers to direct a percentage their Amazon purchase totals to the charitable organization of their choice. Shoppers can choose from a list of nearly 1 million organizations in the U.S. Amazon will give .05 percent of every AmazonSmile purc...

Facebook on Wednesday reported a rise in third-quarter profit and growth in mobile ad revenue. It posted total revenue of $2.02 billion, a 60 percent jump from the $1.26 billion it reported in the year-ago quarter. Advertising accounted for $1.8 billion of that revenue. Facebook now has 1.19 billion...

Disney is giving one of its new children's shows a home on mobile devices before it broadcasts the program via its TV networks. Sheriff Callie's Wild West, the first Western for 2-to-7-year-olds, according to the company, will make its debut on Disney's Watch Disney Junior App on Nov. 24. It will al...

Nintendo on Wednesday reported a net loss of about $81 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30 and blamed the dismal results at least in part on disappointing sales of its Wii U video game console. The company had reported a profit of roughly $87.5 million the previous quarter. While sales of the Wi...

Netflix has already produced original content including Emmy-nominated House of Cards, but now it looks like the over-the-top streaming service may be interested in producing feature films destined for the silver screen as well. Specifically, instead of taking an approach such as HBO's or Showtime's...