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Hoping to boost confidence in electronic voting, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has voted to create standards for the certification testing of the often-controversial e-voting machines. The commission voted Thursday to adopt the Voting Systems Testing and Certification Program, a manual fo...

In a settlement that could lead to new standards for corporate ethics, Hewlett-Packard on Thursday agreed to finance a new law enforcement fund to fight violations of privacy and intellectual property rights. As part of the US$14.5 million settlement, HP will also adopt corporate governance reforms....

Oracle said Thursday it was increasing its offer and boosting the number of shares it will buy of India-based banking software firm i-flex as the database and applications giant tries to convince more of the firm's shareholders to sell. The company said it would increase the number of i-flex shares ...

Continuing technological advances allow companies to store increasing amounts of personal data about their customers. Maintaining this information can help both companies and consumers, allowing for more tailored customer service without requiring customers to provide the same information repeatedly...

Online merchants may want to rethink their advertising strategies next year for the weekend following Thanksgiving in light of a report released this week by BlueLithium Labs. The San Jose, Calif. maker of online advertising solutions reported that "click-through" rates -- the rate at which consumer...

In search, 2006 was a year of launches, re-launches and major partnership deals. Microsoft launched its ad platform. Yahoo started rolling out its improved paid ad platform, Panama. Google partnered with AOL and MySpace and bought YouTube. The search engine once known as "Jeeves" booted the butler a...

IBM this week announced an agreement to acquire Consul Risk Management, a provider of identity access monitoring software that works across mainframe and distributed environments. When the acquisition closes sometime during Q1 2007, the software will be part of IBM's Tivoli software unit, complement...

Cisco on Wednesday announced it is on course with its US$1.1 billion investment in India -- and added it's expanding its commitment there. The company expects to triple its workforce in India over the next three to five years. Cisco first established operations in India in 1995 and today employs ove...

Yahoo said Tuesday it would undertake a major corporate restructuring aimed at capturing more of the growth in online advertising, with two top executives leaving the company and a third taking on an expanded role. Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker will leave that post to become head of the newly...

With the holidays approaching, many traditional and e-only marketers hope that the Web tools and designs they developed during 2006 ring in record sales over the Internet. To summarize what improvements online sellers made over the past 12 months, the E-Commerce Times talked to Jim Wehmann, vice pre...

The chip-making industry appears to be entering a period of consolidation, with a series of deals announced Monday suggesting firms are seeking to expand their technology portfolios and reduce costs by merging with onetime rivals. The largest of the deals calls for LSI Logic to purchase rival storag...

Afternic, the leading U.S.-based domain name reseller, has been purchased by NameMedia in a deal announced on Nov. 28. The acquisition is significant because of the traffic generated from the 1.8 million domain names listed for sale on Afternic's marketplace. The full terms of Afternic's sale have...

For all the hoopla over search engine marketing, there is another method that could dramatically increase conversion rates for e-commerce players: site search. Site search can be as much as three times more likely to convert site visitors to buyers, according to a WebSideStory study. Last year, site...

Qualcomm said Monday it had acquired Airgo Networks, a leading maker of next-generation WiFi tools, and purchased most of the Bluetooth chip interests of RF Micro Devices. Qualcomm did not disclose the purchase price it paid for privately held Airgo, whose technology is being built into many noteboo...

In a bid to grab market share in a growing specialty area, Ask.com launched a revamped local search offering Monday, saying it was the first to offer intuitive search for finding neighborhood businesses along with bundled tools such as mapping and extensive, locally focused content. With AskCity, IA...