Articles by Michael Mahoney

Databases at online credit card processing and security provider Anacom Communications were illegally accessed this week, Anacom's parent company ZixIt Corporation confirmed Thursday ZixIt said that it took control of the entire Anacom premises and began forensic data analysis on the breach Monday night. In addition, the company said, the U.S. Fede...

Despite the fact that more people in the UK are shopping over the Internetthan ever before, a report released Tuesday by Which? Online and theUK Consumers' Association reveals several potential warning signs forBritish e-tailers According to the report, 63 percent of British Internetusers venture online for less than five hours per week, and 2 perc...

Online shopping in Europe is unlikely ever to catch up with e-commerce levels in the U.S., in large part because of regulatory hurdles and small domestic markets, a Forrester Research analyst told the E-Commerce Times on Monday "Shopping online doesn't just depend on people having a lot of online experience," Forrester analyst Jed Kolko said. "It a...

Monster.com has earned the title of top-rated online job search site,according to a report issued Wednesday byGreenfield Online The report is based on two surveys that both asked respondents to name the jobsite they visited the most and the best job site for finding "the right job." In both surveys, Monster.com handily beat out Hotjobs.com and Jobs...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is implementinga new plan to crack down on Web sites selling fraudulent curesfor terminal diseases such as cancer and AIDS The FTC said that on Thursday it will announce a new round of law enforcement actionsto stem the tide of fraudulent marketing of supplements and other health products onthe Internet. It w...

In the latest turn of events concerning the regulation of Nazi and other hate-related memorabilia sales online, a U.S. district court in California Thursday decided not to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) aiming to declare a French court's ruling against the Internet portal unenforceable "The court's opinion indicates that those who...

A drop-off in first-quarter sales by e-commerce firms following the holiday season does not necessarily mean things are all bad for e-tailers, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) told the E-Commerce Times on Wednesday. In fact, e-commerce is showing several signs of increased vitality over last year, the research firm said....

If the file download numbers released Tuesday by Webnoize are any indication, Napster fans had better keep their fingerscrossed that Napster's potential deal with MusicNet goes through According to Webnoize, Napster downloads fell 87 percent from February toMay, dropping all the way from 2.79 billion music files two months ago to360 million last mo...

Hollywood.com (Nasdaq: HOLL) and CinemaNow announced Thursday that they are creating a new, co-branded pay-per-view movie site scheduled to open in June. The deal gives the smaller CinemaNow a much needed venue for distributing mainstream full-length films. Whether it will help give the overall online movie distribution channel more life is anothe...

Bertelsmann AG announced another addition to its online music empire Wednesday, saying it has acquired Internet music collection service MyPlay.com Bertelsmann said MyPlay's digital locker and music subscription technologies will be integrated into the company's new digital technology division, BeMusic. According to Bertelsmann, MyPlay is one of th...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Tuesday that it has approved a settlement agreement with two adult Websites that had been charged with running deceptive "free trial" offers and placing unauthorized charges on consumer credit cards According to the settlement documents, Voice Media Incorporated (VMI), whichowns and operates several adul...

Career search Web site Monster.com extended its European reach Friday, with the announcement that it intends to acquire one of Europe's largest online professional search companies, Jobline International Monster's offer to purchase US$115 million in Jobline stock would add five new Europeancountries -- Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Finla...

Adding to the recent flurry of Internet fraud news, the U.S. Federal TradeCommission (FTC) told Congress on Wednesday it received over 25,000 Internet fraud complaints in 2000. Testifying before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Eileen Harrington of the FTC'sBureau of Consumer Protection said that more than a fourth of all complaintsthe ...

Internet travel agency Travelocity.com (Nasdaq: TVLY) said Wednesday that it has sold its stake in online discount hotel broker Hotel Reservations Network (Nasdaq: ROOM) Travelocity spokesperson Jennifer Tweeton told the E-Commerce Times the company sold its 9.4 percent stake in HRN simply to "monetize its investment and turn its equity into cash."

Despite the failure, as detailed in the documentary "Startup.com," of govWorks.com to make paying parking tickets via the Net a dream come true, real-world government agencies are working overtime to make Internet services for motor vehicle registrations and driver licenses a reality According to a report released Monday by Accenture, the number of...

As dot-com executives continue playing their version of musical chairs, the question many investors are asking now is: what happens whenthe music stops? According to a study released earlier this month by executive placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, dot-com companies claimed more executivedepartures than any other business sector last mo...

Brick-and-click grocer PDQuick.com has been acquired by Web delivery venture WhyRunOut.com in an all-cash transaction, WhyRunOut chief executive officer Dan Frahm said Friday. The value of the deal was not disclosed Gartner Group research director Geri Spieler told the E-Commerce Times that acquiring PDQuick and its small subset of brick-and-mortar...

Urban delivery e-tailer Webvan said Wednesday that it will pay former chief executive officer George T. Shaheen US$375,000 per year for the rest of his life as part of a supplemental retirement package negotiated before Shaheen began his employment with the company According to Webvan spokesperson Bud Grebey, Shaheen's monthly payments will consist...

Pick up virtually any major media publication covering the dot-com shakeoutof the past year and you are likely to come across a slight variation on thefollowing theme: "the New Economy was a bust." The theory goes something like this: the Nasdaq has bottomed out, the NewEconomy business models adopted by the dot-coms did not work, and investment ca...

Media conglomerate DirectGroup Bertelsmann announced Tuesday that it is integrating its online bookstore, BOL.com, into its multichannel book club division and closing some of BOL.com's international operations According to published reports, Bertelsmann club division chief Klaus Eierhoff predicted that the newly enhanced division would be able to ...