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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...

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has announced his intentions to seek a seat on the board of directors for No. 2 mobile handset maker Motorola. The company said Tuesday it had received notification from Icahn that he intended to have himself nominated for one of 12 seats on the company's board when i...

SOA is like an orchestra, a root system, a 30-mile wide fungus, an amoeba, a 1930s Hollywood movie studio and perhaps an independent film built from a loosely coupled team. It's an intellectually wild, yet illuminating, ride. Recently, I sat down with a panel of analysts -- independent industry anal...

MySpace and Sentinel Tech are teaming up to help protect children from online predators. The companies announced on Monday that they will donate the Sentinel Safe database technology program, designed to let users identify and remove convicted sex offenders from online communities, to the National C...

Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced it will strengthen its existing relationship with software vendor SAP, and plans to offer a range of server and storage hardware, support and services for enterprises that embrace SAP's service-oriented architecture approach to information technology. HP is lookin...

Despite a 38 percent drop in quarterly profits when compared to its 2005 fourth-quarter results, Verizon Communications' performance exceeded Wall Street estimates for the second consecutive quarter largely due to its strength in the cell phone sector. Verizon said it earned $1 billion in the final ...

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, ...

The Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, has earned a reputation as a leader and successful innovator in the field of exchange-based energy and commodities trading. Having launched a string of new exchange and over-the-counter traded energy derivatives contracts this past year, the ICE's total 2006 f...

Despite losing an antitrust case in the European Union nearly three years ago, Microsoft is releasing its new Vista operating system in Europe with features similar to those found illegal by the European Commission in 2004, charged a coalition of Microsoft rivals. Microsoft, of course, is still appe...

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...

President Bush, trying to squeeze some political fuel from his State of the Union address, hit the road Thursday to campaign for an energy plan aimed at reducing Americans' energy consumption habits. After signing an executive order Wednesday to cut down on the federal government's use of gasoline a...