E-Commerce

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mo...

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mo...

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mo...

Paying bills with a few computer clicks sounds like a great idea for consumers -- and it is. Online bill paying is increasingly popular with millions of consumers, and the potential for paperless payments is many times greater than it is today. The number of households that used an online payment se...

Although many usability principles might seem like common sense, they are often overlooked in Web site redesign. Among companies large and small, the same usability issues arise over and over again: not having a call to action for your marketing slideshow or product showcase; not having a search box...

Viacom's billion-dollar copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google's YouTube took a nasty turn Thursday as a series of documents were released to the public. "Fostering and countenancing piracy were central to YouTube's economic business model," Viacom's filings charge. Viacom "overtly and covert...

All new e-commerce businesses should address one vital question first and foremost: Will you collect and store payment card information on your Web site or offload credit card processing to a PCI-compliant merchant like PayPal? The answer to this question is paramount and should be well thought out ...

Facebook, thanks to its 400 million status-updating, link-sharing, asparagus-farming, party picture-posting denizens, has risen to the top of the Internet heap once again, surpassing -- at least according to one ranking -- search giant Google in total U.S. visitors for the third time this year. Face...

It now appears almost certain that Google and the Chinese government will not reach an accord over Internet censorship policies and that Google will begin pulling out of the country in the near future. Among the increasing number of signs pointing in that direction are warnings the Chinese governmen...

Millions of consumers have switched their bill-paying practices from tedious sessions with a stack of statements and checkbooks to streamlined, paperless payments through a variety of online channels. However, the movement to electronic payments still has a long way to go, and a huge majority of con...

Although the shadow of the recent recession is still lingering over us, many business owners are moving toward starting an e-commerce business, which can seem like a scary leap to take. However, a reason to take that leap is that the number of consumers shopping online is growing. Recent figures fro...

Google has introduced a mobile version of its Product Search tool that lets users check on a product's availability in local participating stores. Product Search for mobile with local inventory lets a user see if, say, a Nikon Coolpix camera is in stock at a nearby Best Buy or Sears -- two of the re...

Google's proposed $750 million acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob may be subjected to a protracted period of regulatory scrutiny. The FTC reportedly is seeking sworn declarations from at least two of Google's competitors. Google announced its intent to buy AdMob in November 2009, in a stock ...

Legislation signed into law on February 24 will have a profound effect on e-commerce and catalog companies that sell to customers in Colorado. Companies that do not collect Colorado sales tax must notify their Colorado customers that they are obligated to file a use tax return to pay the sales and u...

"Avatar" may be the box office champ in this or any other galaxy, and the first weekend of ticket sales for "Alice in Wonderland" has certainly put a Cheshire Cat smile on the faces of Walt Disney studio executives. However, all that monetary activity stems from watching those two movies in the plus...