E-Commerce

Groupon has packaged a new deal, and it's going worldwide. The Internet coupon star will go public on Nov. with an IPO designed to raise as much as $621 million, valuing the company at $11.4 billion. That's just 5 percent of the company's shares. The numbers look big on the surface, but the total is...

When consumers in California visit the Dunkin' Donuts website hoping to order a bag of their favorite java, they are met with the following message: "Important Notice: We are temporarily suspending the shipment of orders to California while we work to comply with Proposition 65 ... ." Bloggers, comm...

Looks like a couple of disparate groups are forming to bid for Yahoo. Microsoft reportedly is working with Silver Lake and one of Silver Lake's investors, the Canada Pension Plan, to put together a proposal that would include several billion dollars from Microsoft, with additional financing arranged...

There's a new social network in town -- Chime.in, the brainchild of Bill Gross, known for creating Google's AdWords platform. Gross is the CEO of UberMedia, the developer of popular Twitter clients Echofon and Ubersocial. Chime.in launched as a public beta on Tuesday and will fully launch in Novemb...

It is almost hard to remember when all Amazon did was sell books -- the paperback and hardcover versions, that is. Over the years, the company has morphed and then morphed some more into a multilayered e-commerce platform, selling everything from digital music to storage space in the cloud to, well,...

Google appears to be working on an online music store that will compete with the established offerings of Apple and Amazon. How competitive this online store will be is unclear, at least based on what is currently reported about its status. Google reportedly has held talks with Universal Music Group...

The superstar movie rental giant Netflix rapidly graduated to movie streaming and suddenly splintered off its old-fashioned DVD-by-mail service to create "Qwikster," a separate division with a name identity inspired by the likes of "Twitter" and "Napster," etc. When the outcry of customers reached...

Personally Identifiable Information may include many details such as name, address, email address, phone numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers and the like. From a technology standpoint, every visitor to every website provides some PII about who they are and where they came from. Whe...

Netflix cracked under pressure and regrouped its business into a single service offering that includes both streaming content and mailed DVDs. The company announced on Monday it will not split off its DVD-by-mail service under the name "Qwikster," as planned. Instead, U.S. customers will continue to...

In a recent decision handed down by the Ontario Court of Appeal, the issue centered on whether domain names could be considered "personal property." The view from most international jurisprudence and academic commentary, including the United States, appears to be that domain names are a new type of ...

Recent corporate shake-ups at Yahoo and anonymous insider reports to various media outlets added fuel to the fiery rumors that Microsoft is eyeing an acquisition of the search engine. Though Microsoft reportedly denied assertions that it was looking into buying Yahoo, the search engine's stock value...

Verizon and Microsoft are teaming up to bring new FiOS TV-powered entertainment offerings to the Xbox 360 gaming console, a move that highlights the rapid expansion of diverse content across multiple platforms. The deal will use Verizon's FiOS TV application to allow Xbox Live Gold members to watch ...

Today's increasingly connected world makes it possible for anyone to transact and do business anywhere -- from anywhere. But just because we now increasingly live in a "global village," that doesn't mean place has become irrelevant. In fact, it matters more than ever. Despite the fact that we're all...

Consumers are increasingly shopping on global sites, and they want to shop in their own language. By demonstrating cultural awareness, businesses will truly be able to expand internationally. Organizations can attract new and returning business from around the world if they listen to the preferences...

Amazon's Kindle Fire debuted Wednesday morning with much fanfare. Many of the tablet's specs were already known, leaked or widely suspected, leaving little to wow the crowds -- except the price point. The device is going to retail at an eyebrow-raising US$199, several hundred dollars less than the ...