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Buyers are naturally cautious when considering whether or not to make a purchase from unfamiliar merchants. Even if this anxiety is not justified, the effect on online retailers is often detrimental. Shopper anxiety creates a complicated challenge for online merchants, especially ones without nation...

The U.S. International Trade Commission has denied a request from Qualcomm to put on hold an order barring phones containing chips made by Qualcomm that have been found to infringe on a rival's patents from the U.S. market. The decision, handed down on Thursday, likely leaves Qualcomm with few optio...

The Pentagon took an undisclosed number of computers offline on Wednesday after it detected a cyber-attack on its systems earlier this week, Pentagon spokesperson Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler told the E-Commerce Times. This resulted in some of the Pentagon's e-mail systems being taken down. Peppler ...

EU regulators said they would expand their ongoing probe into the privacy issues first raised about search engine giant Google to include other major search tools. The decision of the European Commission's data watchdog group to broaden its probe into the privacy implications of rapidly evolving sea...

If you have a super brand, then let the whole world see it. If you have absolute 100 percent global ownership of that brand, then prove it. A quick search on Google will get you started. Many of today's best-known brands may still be threatened by a lack of exclusivity. They may have logos, unique d...

This past May, the country of Estonia was hit hard by what its authorities called a "virtual war." This war took the form of an attack on the country's computer infrastructure. Many governmental and commercial sites were hit. The attacks on the country's commerce seemed to focus on the country's med...

Have you ever walked into a big box store and seen scores of half-full shopping carts scattered throughout the aisles? It would seem unlikely, but for e-commerce retailers, abandoned carts are more common than you think. Shopping cart abandonment has existed since the dawn of the e-cart, but how can...

Earlier this month, it looked for a while as though there might be another wave of multi-jurisdictional investigations against Microsoft reminiscent of the antitrust saga that began in 1998. Google had been complaining -- first behind the scenes, then publicly -- about the lack of access for third-p...

Regulators in Europe have given the green light to a planned Internet joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.: a Web video repository seen as a competitor to Google's YouTube. The yet-to-be-named venture -- first announced in March following weeks of speculation -- is expected to launch s...

The two largest phone companies in Canada are in talks for a possible merger that could fend off U.S.-backed private equity buyers as the wave of consolidation that reshaped the U.S. telecommunications landscape appears poised to hit north of the border. BCE, the largest phone provider in Canada, co...

The three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court has upheld a ruling that grants extensive new privacy protections for e-mail users. It is an ambitious decision -- said to be the first for the Circuit Courts -- and one that is almost surely headed to the Supreme Court for review. In Warshak v. Unite...

A computer failure at United Airlines prevented the takeoff of all the air carrier's flights worldwide for about two hours on Wednesday. Flights scheduled to depart between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. EDT were grounded, causing backups and delays around the globe. Twenty-four domestic flights were canceled, ...

News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch has offered to swap the wildly popular social networking site MySpace in exchange for a stake in portal-in-flux Yahoo. Murdoch reportedly approached Yahoo with the offer of giving the portal ownership of MySpace in exchange for a 30 percent ownership stake of the com...

Small businesses, beware. Can your business survive a natural disaster? Chances are against your survival if you do not have a recovery and continuity plan in place. A national survey conducted by custom market information company TNSInfo reveals that many small businesses would not survive a natura...

Shares of Best Buy slid by more than 5 percent Tuesday after the electronics retail giant posted lower earnings and moderated its outlook for the rest of the year, citing a less profitable mix of hot-selling products. Best Buy's profit for its first quarter was $192 million, or 39 cents per share, 1...