E-Commerce

In a move to help it break free of the old-school DVD format, Netflix is beefing up its streaming video service. Instead of limiting the number of hours customers can watch movies online, Netflix is now offering unlimited video streaming from its entire video library. With the change, customers can ...

Leading domain registrar Network Solutions is under fire for a controversial practice under which it briefly reserves domain names after it notices search activity on the names. Network Solutions describes the technique as a way to protect legitimate interest in domains from modern-day cyber-squatte...

Peer-to-peer consumer lending sites are shaking up the world of Internet finance. Be it the Internet or broadband wide-area networks, growing capabilities and increasing standardization are changing the way finance organizations do business, as Part 1 of this series discusses. The Net is also a key ...

Amazon.com will start selling songs from the massive library of Sony BMG in a format free of restrictions on copying and playback -- a major victory for the e-tailer's fledging music store and another sign that digital rights management controls on premium digital music may soon be a thing of the pa...

Ever notice that Microsoft -- with cash to burn, apparently -- waits for the obvious to become inevitable and then ends up paying huge premiums for companies in order to catch up to reality? We saw it with aQuantive, Softricity and Groove Networks. It's happened again with Tuesday's $1.2 billion bid...

More than a decade after they first rushed to search for exit-strategy gold in the e-commerce niche, venture investors are still finding plenty of early and mid-stage companies to back in the space. Often, however, the deals are more modest in size than they were when the dot-com bubble was building...

Comcast is launching an online video hub that will connect users with content in a variety of formats, joining a crush of companies aiming to leverage the Web to provide the ultimate on-demand experience. The cable giant's Fancast site will be the first such destination meant to connect users with c...

Microsoft is moving to buy Norway-based enterprise search specialist Fast Search and Transfer for $1.2 billion, a purchase that would instantly grow the software giant's business search footprint. Redmond is offered Fast shareholders about $3.50 per share, a 42 percent premium to the company's tradi...

If you lived under a rock throughout 2007 and recently surfaced to catch up on technology news, you likely will not recognize Google. Sure, the company still dominates the search market, its logo looks the same, and it continues to offer Gmail and other Web-based products. However, the "don't-be-evi...

Behavioral targeting has been around since the first dot-com days, but it got really hot again in late 2007, thanks to a few big promoters like Facebook. So, What exactly is it, and does it really work the way it sounds? BT tracks a Web visitor's browser clickstreams -- typically in the last six vis...

Internet banking and stock trading was all the rage during the late 1990s. Now, two emerging areas of e-finance -- peer-to-peer lending and microfinance -- are disrupting the status quo even further and moving their markets into a new stage of development. Facilitators of peer-to-peer borrowing and ...

A Michigan grand jury has indicted the man widely know as the "Spam King" and 10 others in connection with an alleged stock fraud scheme that used bulk e-mails to pump up the prices of stocks. The biggest name among those indicted is that of 52-year-old Alan Ralsky, who earned the nickname of "Spam ...

Of the Web's many attractions, the potential to tap into a global marketplace, has perhaps been first and foremost for businesses. If you are a manufacturer, distributor or merchant, designing and launching a Web site is but one piece of putting together and solving the e-commerce puzzle, however. B...

Overstock.com cofounder Jason Lindsey has resigned from the company's board and has given up his titles of president and chief operating officer, unexpected moves likely to raise questions about the company's holiday season performance. Lindsey, who founded Overstock with CEO Patrick Byrne, stepped ...

Movie rental giant Netflix will partner with LG Electronics to offer set-top boxes that will enable consumers to stream movies from the Internet to their network-enabled TV sets. The service will eliminate the need to use a personal computer to download films -- a service Netflix currently offers on...