E-Commerce

Persuading a company's brass to buy tools to analyze Web traffic is an easy sell these days, but that's not the case when it comes to hiring bodies to interpret the data produced by the tools. Those were among the findings in a report released last week by Forrester Research. "Because Web analytics ...

Consumers and small businesses just can't afford to let their network and computer guards down these days. With the growing number of mobile and wireless technologies available to them, and with cybercrooks becoming better organized, focused, and more willing to share resources, the digital world c...

In separate filings, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the World Privacy Forum have asked the FTC to investigate AOL's release earlier this month of search term queries that had been made by 650,000 of its users over a three-month period. "This release was a violation of section 5 of The FTC Ac...

To accommodate the increased use of rich media ads by online marketers, Nielsen//NetRatings is modifying its media intelligence service, AdRelevance. "Clients can now take apart ads that specifically contain video elements," AdRelevance Product Manager Sally Krumholz told the E-Commerce Times. "They...

In a move to attract more local businesses to its brand, Google on Monday launched a service that allows customers to print out discount coupons for local merchants from Google Maps. The new service targets value-conscious consumers with more than 20,000 coupons supplied by Cox Enterprises' ValPak D...

News Corp.-owned Twentieth Century Fox on Monday announced a multi-year agreement to provide feature films and television shows on a download-to-own basis across the Fox Interactive Media network. MySpace.com is among the properties FIM parent company News Corp. plans to include in the digital deal...

In a first for the evolving home movie industry, Paramount Pictures said it would release "Mission: Impossible III" in three formats at once later this fall, including the two formats competing to claim dominance in the high-definition DVD space. Paramount said "M:I-3" will be out Oct. 30 in standar...

BetOnSports.com, the UK-based online gaming site whose CEO faces accusations of fraud, has shut down its U.S. operations. The site has become a flashpoint in the online gambling debate since the charges were initially filed almost a month ago. A note on the company's Web site says the firm made the...

Viacom's MTV Networks continued to make aggressive moves into the Web space, saying Wednesday it would buy Atom Entertainment, known for its gaming and short films sites, for US$200 million. MTV Networks said the buy is an extension of the company's "multiplatform strategy of building an engaging un...

AOL has apologized for inadvertently posting on the Internet search data of 658,000 AOL members that used the proprietary software to conduct searches over a three month period. The data, which has since been taken down, had been collected for academic researchers and did not directly connect search...

Making a bid for a greater share of the digital music space, mobile phone giant Nokia said Tuesday it had reached an agreement to buy music distributor Loudeye in a deal worth US$60 million. Finland-based Nokia said it would pay $4.50 per share for Loudeye, more than twice what the stock was worth a...

In the Web search world at least, the rich may continue to get richer. Google said late Monday it had signed a US$900 million deal to become the exclusive search provider for social networking giant MySpace.com and other Web properties owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, beating out its major riva...

Google said it has no intention of entering the digital music space, squelching mounting speculation that it would use its role as a search player to become a competitor to Apple's iTunes Music Store and other music download offerings. With numerous initiatives feeding rumors that it would enter the...

Moving to further assert its role as a distributor of video on the Web, Google said Monday it had reached an agreement to deliver video clips and shows from Viacom's MTV Networks to users, along with video advertising. Google and MTV Networks described the partnership as a test of "an innovative vid...

Hoping to boost advertiser confidence in the interactive marketing industry, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said it would form a working group to create click fraud prevention guidelines. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Ask.com are among the companies that have already agreed to participate in the ...