Uncategorized

At a hearing before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan were forced to defend Yahoo's testimony last year regarding its role in the Chinese government's arrest and jailing of journalist Shi Tao. The executives were called on ...

The 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America hit the picket lines Monday after talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to reach a compromise. At issue are new allocation plans for DVD and digital download residuals. It is the first strike since writers walked ...

As the Internet and digital technologies continue to play an ever-increasing role on the business side of the music industry, big-name recording artists have begun to turn their backs on their labels and opt instead to strike out on their own. Part 1 of this two-part series described what longstandi...

The two leading social networking sites -- Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace -- are both launching advertising programs this week aimed at allowing marketers to tightly target their audiences by using information from user profiles and other data. MySpace announced the pending launch of "SelfServe b...

Seeking to unlock value from a years-long acquisition spree, IAC/Interactive said Monday it will split into five publicly traded companies, leaving the Ask.com search engine as the core IAC holding, along with other Internet interests. IAC's board has approved a plan to spin off four new companies: ...

Considering putting an e-mail disclaimer at the end of the e-mail that says, in effect, "Hey, don't read this!" is every bit as effective as a park flasher telling you not to look -- how much protection does that overly verbose threat actually carry? "The e-mail disclaimer is more of a back-up plan ...

Ottawa, Canada-based Wi-Lan has filed two separate infringement suits against 22 chip suppliers, equipment vendors and electronics retailers. The targeted companies include Acer, Apple, Atheros, Belkin, Best Buy, Broadcom, Buffalo Technology, Circuit City, Dell, D-Link, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Inf...

CreditCards.com, a Web-based distributor of credit cards to consumers, hopes to raise as much as $185 million through an initial public offering, the company said Friday. The Austin, Texas-based firm still does not have a firm date for its offering, first announced in August, but in a filing with th...

TV and movie writers in the Writers Guild of America are expected to hit the picket lines as early as Monday after failing to reach agreements with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The two factions are waging a pitched battle over DVD and digital distribution residuals, a gro...

As the Federal Trade Commission geared up for its Town Hall meeting at the end of this week focusing on electronic behavioral marketing techniques, privacy advocates banded together to urge the agency to give consumers a way to opt out. Specifically, nine privacy organizations have requested that th...

Viacom, which has invested heavily to expand its footprint on the Web, said its "Transformers" movie franchise and the sale of its music publishing business helped it record an 80 percent jump in third-quarter earnings. Viacom earned $641.6 million, up 80 percent when compared with $356.8 million a ...

In the shadow of the towering Hollywood sign, executives in the film, TV, music, telecom, Internet and technology industries are convening this week to compare notes on a new starlet: the tech-savvy consumer. Digital Hollywood conference attendees are crowding the hallways, ballroom and meeting room...

Times are tough at Sprint Nextel. The company reported losing 337,000 post-paid customers and suffered a 77 percent decline in third-quarter profits during a period that also saw the struggling company remove its CEO. The Reston, Va.-based communication company, which trails Verizon Wireless and AT&...

Cisco on Thursday unveiled a long-term plan meant to significantly expand its presence in China, saying it would spend as much as $16 billion -- nearly double the $8.5 billion it has spent in the past five years -- to build out the footprint it started there nearly 14 years ago. Cisco laid out a thr...

IBM unveiled a slew of new security products and services and said it would continue to invest heavily in security innovations to address customer needs for a more comprehensive approach to information technology risk. On the heels of a security-related buying spree, Big Blue will spend at least $1....