E-Commerce Breaking News

Autonomy, Endeca rate among top enterprise search vendors
The best enterprise search products on the market come from Autonomy, Endeca, the Microsoft subsidiary Fast and Vivisimo, but Google’s Search Appliance continues to dominate the market in terms of brand awareness and sheer number of customers, Forrester Research says in a new report. More..

Microsoft, HTC announce mobile Internet service platform
Microsoft Taiwan, mobile phone maker High Tech Computer and several other companies on Thursday announced a mobile Internet service station in Taiwan called Pl@net. More..

U.S. FTC settles with marketers of 'free' software CDs
A Texas company that offered supposedly free software on CDs, but then billed customers for a software continuity program they didn't sign up for, will pay nearly US $2.2 million to settle charges levied by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the agency announced. More..

Microsoft links with VitalPay for payment processing
Microsoft has made an unspecified agreement with a payment processing company, in what could be another step toward establishing its own online payment system. More..

Will Online Auctions Die Out?
Once a shining example of the potential for online profit, auctions on eBay may now be a dying breed, according to an interesting BusinessWeek story out Tuesday. More..

DOJ settles Internet complaint against real estate group
The U.S. Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) have reached a settlement on a 2005 antitrust complaint in which the DOJ accused the group of freezing out Internet-based real estate agents. More..

MIT researchers: morphing Web sites could bring riches
Web sites that automatically customize themselves for each visitor so they come across as more appealing or simply less annoying can boost sales for online businesses by close to 20%, MIT research says. More..

EBay to turn on feedback system changes
EBay will roll out a host of changes to its feedback mechanism this month globally, including the controversial elimination of sellers' ability to leave negative feedback for buyers. More..

U.S. court halts adult site's e-mail operation
A U.S. judge has ordered the halt to an e-mail campaign by the operators of adult Web sites after complaints by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice that the e-mail messages violated an antispam law. More..

Online everyone can hear your customers scream
OK, it's official. I love Neiman Marcus! At least, I love their customer service. For Christmas '06 my wife gave me this cool desktop weather station that Neiman Marcus was selling. It's a retro kind of design - a dome that houses a thermometer, hygrometer, and barometer - that looks almost steampunkish. Anyway, this device sat on my desk for a few months before I noticed that the barometer hardly moved. So, in the middle of last year I called Neiman Marcus and requested a replacement as the device had obviously never worked properly. More..

Payment fraud moves to Internet in Europe, says Commission
Despite recent efforts to clamp down on electronic payments fraud, the crime is still rife and is undermining citizens' confidence in buying and selling over the internet, the European Commission said Monday. More..

Data center mushrooming? Why not get rid of it?
If your data center processing load doubled this year, could you handle the growth? Booming businesses such as Bazaarvoice are turning to Web hosting companies, including Rackspace, Savvis, AT&T, Terramark and IBM, to handle their data center operations.  More..

PayPal denies plan to block Safari
PayPal has denied claims it plans to lock Safari users out of its online payments service as it reinforces its protections against online credit fraud. More..

N.Y. to tax goods bought on Amazon
The New York State Legislature has passed a budget that includes a provision requiring certain online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. to collect sales taxes from online purchases and remit them to the state. According to the budget, collecting these taxes will bring in $50 million this year. More..

GAO: Stolen U.S. military gear sold on eBay, Craigslist
Stolen and sensitive U.S. military equipment, including body armor, night vision goggles and gear to protect against nuclear or biochemical warfare, are being sold on Craigslist and eBay Inc., a GAO report says. More..

Finding Deals on Portable Technology
We're either in a recession or teetering on the precipice of one. Want to discuss the Bear Stearns collapse, the slumping housing market, rising oil prices? Let's not and say we did. More..

XLNT! Now U can TXT message an order to Amazon
Amazon.com Wednesday launched TextBuyIt, a service that lets customers use text messages from their cell phones to shop on its Web site. Anyone with a cell phone can shop and purchase any product on Amazon's Web site. People can already access Amazon using the browsers on their cell phones, according to an Amazon statement. More..

eBay cuts 125 jobs in North America, Europe
EBay said it's cutting 125 jobs in Europe and North America, including 70 positions at the company's San Jose headquarters, according to a news report. More..

ValueClick to pay $2.9 million to settle spam complaint
Online advertiser ValueClick has agreed to pay a record US$2.9 million to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission complaint that it sent deceptive advertising claims in spam e-mail and failed to secure consumers' sensitive financial information. More..

Fruit merchant sues IBM over rotten patent protection
IBM is facing a $6 million patent-related lawsuit from Harry & David, an Internet retailer that was sued because it used an IBM e-commerce system that allegedly contained technology patented by two other companies.  More..

Ballmer grilled on Yahoo deal in quirky Q&A
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer couldn't avoid being trampled by the elephant in the room -- the company's bid to acquire Yahoo -- during a quirky keynote question-and-answer session at the company's MIX 08 conference Thursday. More..

Google ad drop may not signal problems
A report by Internet market researcher ComScore detailing a 7% decline in the number of times U.S. consumers clicked on ads next to Google search results in January sent analysts scurrying to explain the decline. More..

Retailers' No. 1 tech priority is business intelligence
All of the frothy hype over business intelligence tools is justly warranted in the retail industry. That's according to a January 2008 report from Aberdeen Group titled "Business Intelligence in Retail: A Best-in-Class Roadmap for Performance Improvement." More..

Cisco, Google, others rally around emerging standard DKIM to fight phishing
Some of the Internet's most powerful companies - including Yahoo, Google, PayPal and AOL - are brandishing a new weapon in the ongoing battle against e-mail fraud. It is called DKIM, an emerging e-mail authentication standard developed by the IETF, and it allows an organization to cryptographically sign outgoing e-mail to verify that it sent the message. More..

Laptop selling tps for eBay
Since my first story about selling a laptop on eBay appeared, I've learned a lot about the process. This week, I'm sharing some of those lessons learned, to help you reduce your chances of being defrauded by unscrupulous buyers. More..