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For anglers, spring is a time for removing the rod and reel from storage and heading to a lake or stream. For phishers of another kind, however, spring is the season for tax scams. Phishing -- the use of phony e-mails and Web sites to obtain personal information about people -- has become such a pro...

Peer-to-peer communications firm Skype said it would buy a pair of VoIP startups in a two-for-one deal completed with the stock of parent company eBay, a transaction that gives it direct access to technology it currently licenses from a third party. Skype, which eBay acquired last September in a dea...

Paramount Pictures and Microsoft on Wednesday entered into a partnership to push the movie studio's trailers into the software giant's Xbox Live service. Dubbed the Xbox Movie Showcase, the service will feature free, high-definition, downloadable content from two of the most highly anticipated films...

Amid controversy over digital download music prices, an Anglo-Italian band is making its own headlines -- and a bit of history -- by releasing Britain's first "mobile only" single. Planet Funk will release the single "Stop Me" on May 8 over mobile media company 3's network. Planet Funk is hopping on...

Continuing its epic battle against the European Union's antitrust arm, Microsoft plans to argue in court that regulators overstepped their boundaries and violated international law. They did so, the U.S.-based company charges, by imposing sanctions that require it to share its technology with rivals...

Marketers will need to tweak their selling strategies if they want to collar new broadband customers, according to industry experts. Although broadband growth has been strong for the last three years -- nearly doubling from 23.7 million subscribers in 2003 to 40.9 million in 2005 -- the "big pitch" ...

At least one UK-based telecommunications firms may be on the verge of launching a free broadband product, offering high-speed Internet access as a free service that comes with telephone service. The yet-to-be-announced services would be a new twist in what is shaping up to be a long and hard fought ...

Google has gobbled up yet another technology -- this time from a computer science student Down Under. Google bought a new search algorithm created by Ori Allon, a 26-year-old Israeli Ph.D. student from the University of New South Wales in Australia. Allon patented a new way of exploring the Web that...

Profit margins for American and Canadian mobile phone carriers are soaring -- having reached the highest point this decade during the fourth quarter of last year. EBITDA margins among North American cellular carriers jumped four percentage points during the fourth quarter of 2005 to 32 percent -- th...

An effort to get so-called net neutrality baked into telecommunications laws suffered a setback, with a key committee voting against language that would ensure that Web services firms would be able to access broadband networks to delivery video and other content. The Telecommunications and Internet ...

Shares of Research In Motion dropped Friday after the maker of the BlackBerry e-mail reader said revenue fell short of analyst targets for the fourth quarter. The company gave a weaker-than-expected forecast, despite claiming that it has regained momentum now that its legal issues are behind it. On...

Microsoft is reviewing a lawsuit filed against it by Lucent Technologies. The suit alleges that Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console contains technology that infringes on a Lucent patent. Lucent filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in San Diego on March 28. The company is seeking an injuncti...

Vodafone, one of the largest mobile phone carriers in the world, unveiled a sweeping restructuring plan designed to cut costs and help it compete in a rapidly changing marketplace. The UK-based company -- the largest mobile carrier in terms of market value -- plans to split into three units to focus...

Netflix on Tuesday filed a patent infringement suit against Blockbuster alleging the bricks-and-mortar movie rental chain illegally copied its ideas. Netflix is seeking a court order that would force Blockbuster to change its online rental processes and pay patent royalties. The complaint was filed ...

Computer Sciences Corp. may find it a challenge to nail both the right buyer and the right price if it ends up on the block. The company has announced it is exploring various alternatives including an outright sale. On Tuesday, CSC said its board of directors "decided to explore strategic alternati...