E-Commerce

New technological advances, as well as legal and regulatory changes, are tearing down long-standing barriers between industries. Digital voice, data and multimedia content delivery operations are converging with both fixed and wireless telecommunications services. In addition, a host of telecoms, ca...

There seems to be a real debate going on in many of organizations about how to structure search engine marketing efforts. Fueled, perhaps, by an underlying dissatisfaction with their vendors and the increasing perception that their effort isn't well coordinated and shouldn't be so siloed, many compa...

Media conglomerate Viacom demanded on Friday that Google's video service YouTube remove from its Web pages as many as 100,000 video clips containing copyrighted material. The two sides had been negotiating a licensing agreement that would allow Viacom-owned content on the YouTube site when talks bro...

A record holiday season pushed Amazon to nearly $4 billion in sales in the fourth quarter, but a heavier reliance on electronics sales, continued promotions and shipping discounts ate into profits, forcing executives to defend some of its recent moves into new markets. Profit plummeted 50 percent fr...

For the past three years, a Chicago consulting firm has assumed a Grinch-like role with its annual estimate of worker productivity losses attributable to the Super Bowl. Those losses, though, may actually be gains for many businesses, according to the firm's top executive. Money lost due to producti...

The Microsoft executive who led the company's Zune product launch, among other things, is retiring from the company, officials announced Wednesday. Bryan Lee, corporate vice president of Microsoft's entertainment business, plans to leave the company in the next several weeks to pursue personal inter...

Google further solidified its paid search lead in the fourth quarter, nearly tripling its profit amid a 38 percent jump in revenue as the search giant continued to burnish its reputation as the can't-miss Internet company. Google secured net income for the quarter of $1.03 billion, or $3.29 per shar...

With the December announcement that NDS, a provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, acquired Jungo, a residential gateway software provider, we're continuing to witness consolidation in the market to deliver complete end-to-end access and service-provider solutions. The purchase also rea...

Online auction giant eBay is reportedly cracking down on the sale of "virtual assets" won in online games like "World of Warcraft," a move that comes as good news to other companies making money by hosting virtual asset sales and bartering. Millions of people worldwide are avid players of the online...

Media conglomerate Time Warner posted strong fourth quarter results Wednesday, despite a decline in revenue from online unit America Online. Revenue at AOL, which is continuing to undergo a massive transformation from dial-up Internet access provider to free-to-all Web portal supported by search and...

As more phones and other small-form handheld devices get "smarter," so does the potential for people to use them more often, and for many varied and different purposes. The number of mobile cell phone subscribers worldwide surpassed 1 billion in 2006, and technological innovation continues apace as...

Music label Sony BMG has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that it violated federal law by installing spyware and digital rights management software onto music CDs without telling consumers. The deal calls for Sony BMG to allow consumers to exchange CDs purchased be...

Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular have settled a lawsuit over their secret use of adware Internet software programs as marketing tools filed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. As part of the settlement, Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular agreed to pay $35,000, $30,000 and $35,000, r...

In a move that could have repercussions for all forms of social networking, especially online user-generated video, YouTube intends to begin sharing its advertising revenue with users who contribute videos. YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley disclosed the plans during the World Economic Forum in Davos, ...

Twentieth Century Fox has subpoenaed Google's YouTube, demanding that the video service release the identities of users who recently uploaded pirated videos of the "24" and "The Simpsons" TV series. With the subpoena, which was issued January 18, Fox may be taking a page from the legal playbook of t...