E-Commerce

Redbox Instant, the joint venture between Redbox and Verizon to add streaming video services to the DVD rental company's offerings, launched this week to help the company better compete with rivals Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu. The company announced a beta test period for the service last ...

Proposed changes to the popular Mozilla Firefox browser that would block third-party cookies have sparked the ire of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which claims the move will hurt how small businesses use ads to attract customers. Mozilla's proposal will let users give their permission for the ...

The Federal Trade Commission released its updated Dot Com Disclosures guidance on Tuesday, emphasizing the requirements for advertisers targeting mobile devices. In short, the rules that apply to ads in newspapers, radio and television also apply to mobile devices and social media. The update is th...

The social bookmarking site Pinterest, one of the fastest-growing social networks of the last two years, released a new analytics tool Tuesday so that users -- especially businesses and marketing professionals -- can do a better job of tracking traffic and sharing aspects of the site. Pinterest Web ...

Facebook unveiled its new look this week, providing bigger photos and more links in users' News Feeds, along with additional ways to view specialized streams based on topics of interest, such as music. This is apparently an attempt to corral all the random musings and disjointed pictures users are a...

Pandora exceeded Wall Street expectations with its quarterly earnings report Thursday, sending the company's stock soaring. The streaming music service still faces the inherent challenges in its sector, however -- namely rising royalty costs and how to monetize a mobile presence. In addition to the ...

A growing number of established and emerging software and technology vendors are seeking to take advantage of the convergence of Big Data and the cloud. None has made a bigger bet than IBM. Since 2005, IBM has spent more than $16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. The ...

Google reportedly is planning to broaden its reach into the e-commerce space with Google Shopping Express, a service similar to Amazon Prime. The subscription fee would be $10-$15 cheaper, and another draw would be same-day shipping from brick-and-mortar stores. It's not clear what Google stands to ...

When Brooklyn-based PruneDanish.com sends shipments of its electronics, accessories, and home and garden products to customers overseas, it uses Swedish stamps. As odd as that might seem, it makes sense for the e-commerce company. PruneDanish.com uses the services of Direct Link, a U.S. subsidiary o...

Facebook has flatly denied the suggestion by a New York Times columnist that it might be gaming its own system -- that is, that the way it pumps up views of fee-based promoted posts could be by limiting the sharing of ordinary posts. "There have been recent claims suggesting that our News Feed algo...

Kim Dotcom experienced a legal setback late last week when the New Zealand Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that had required the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to disclose all of its evidence against him. However, his fight to avoid extradition is nowhere near closure. Nor has ...

Google and other aggregators won a partial victory Friday in the lower house of the German parliament, where lawmakers approved legislation that would allow publishers to protect their digital copyrights by charging to fully reproducing their content. Questions remain about whether other countries -...

Barnes & Noble reported this week that it will be rethinking strategy for its Nook division, since slow sales of its e-reader led to a tough recent quarter for the nation's largest book retailer. The company reported an overall total revenue slump for its third quarter, down 8.8 percent to $2.2 ...

Barnes & Noble reported this week that it will be rethinking strategy for its Nook division, since slow sales of its e-reader led to a tough recent quarter for the nation's largest book retailer. The company reported an overall total revenue slump for its third quarter, down 8.8 percent to $2.2 ...

A day after posting disappointing quarterly earnings, Groupon ousted its founder and CEO Andrew Mason. The company's stock jumped 4 percent in after-hours trading as the news became public. "I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding -- I was fired today. If you're wo...