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Though well-intentioned, services that scrub potentially offensive material from DVDs and then resell them as family-friendly versions are violating copyright laws, a court has ruled. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch ruled in favor of major Hollywood studios by saying that a number of compan...

The European Commission is poised to raise the limit on daily fines that Microsoft may face if it does not bring itself into compliance with remedies aimed at addressing its past antitrust behavior on the continent. Reports say the EC will raise the cap on daily fines to the equivalent of US$3.8 mil...

One in five Americans age 12 or older own a digital music player, according to a study released last week by a global market research firm. The study, which is prepared quarterly by Ipsos Insight of New York City, noted that younger music listeners are driving growth in the DMP market, with some 54 ...

Fixed and wireless phone giant Verizon this week filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission details of a possible plan to spin off its U.S. print and online yellow pages business. The company said it had not yet made a final decision on the directories spinoff, but signaled it would divest it...

eBay has determined the Google Checkout system, which launched last week after months of speculation, is not an acceptable form of payment for eBay auctions or fixed-price sales. Checkout, which launched amid swirling questions about how a Google payment system would impact eBay's own PayPal, does n...

In January 2005, I wrote an article for the E-Commerce Times entitled "VoIP Here to Stay." In that article, I stated, "The future of VoIP is, to a significant extent, now!" It's hard to imagine that the column was written only about a year and a half ago. At that time, Vonage had about 350,000 custo...

Although the Department of Veterans Affairs may be able to relax slightly now that the laptop containing sensitive information on millions of veterans and military personnel has been recovered, the incident highlights the role government plays in ensuring data security. "It is a hot political issue ...

With the fallout from its messy divorce with Toys "R" Us still reverberating around the Internet, Amazon.com on Thursday launched replacements for what was one of the most popular departments in its virtual mega-store. Amazon, which handled online sales for toysrus.com for about five years before th...

AOL may offer its full menu of services, including e-mail, at no cost to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection. The Time Warner unit could be forsaking as much as US$2 billion in annual subscription fees in an attempt to drive more traffic -- and hopefully more ad revenues -- to its Internet ...

Just two weeks after selling a major portion of its mobile communications chip business, Intel said Wednesday it would invest US$600 million into a WiMax services provider that previously had designs on an IPO. In a move that offers further insight into how Intel intends to remain a player in the mo...

A federal judge in Houston and the U.S. Attorney's office for that region are wrangling over just how much information the government can garner from a phone call without a warrant for a wiretap. The case involves a request by U.S. Attorney Donald J. DeGabrielle Jr. for a pen register and a trap and...

With legislative attempts to mandate so-called "network neutrality" sputtering, Google said it would use existing antitrust laws to require that cable companies and telcos carry its services to consumers if necessary. Google would not hesitate to bring antitrust complaints to the attention of the U....

In the competitive world of the Internet circa 2006, text is getting plenty of company. In addition to other forms of content that are crowding the printed word, the Internet is rapidly becoming populated with video. It's rare to see more than a few days pass without a video-related announcement fro...

Google defended its system of ranking Web pages in search results in court Friday after a competitor claimed its pages were unfairly blocked. A California judge is considering whether to allow a lawsuit to proceed. Attorneys for Google argued that the search giant can use any criteria it wants to ra...

Mobile technology developer Qualcomm is facing charges from U.S. based companies that it improperly used its market dominance to squelch competition in Korea, where regulators are probing a fresh batch of complaints. Korea's Fair Trade Commission is examining complaints from Dallas-based Texas Instr...