Articles by Michael Mahoney

MP3.com (Nasdaq: MPPP) woke up to quite a shock Monday morning when the company was informed by a U.S. District Court that a US$300,000 copyright infringement award in favor of Tee Vee Toons (TVT) Records on Friday might actually be almost $3 million According to published reports, the eight-member jury in the case discovered over the weekend that ...

Microsoft announced a new alliance with Partner America on Friday designed to help small businesses venture into the world of e-commerce. Partner America, a public-private partnership between the United States Conference of Mayors and American Management Services, will be co-sponsoring a series of Microsoft "Big Day" seminars, workshops and roundt...

U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans told Latin American trade ministers Wednesday that e-commerce initiatives must play an integral part in thecreation of any Western Hemisphere free trade agreements Evans told members of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA), who aremeeting over the next few days in Argentina to conduct trade talks, that inord...

Are there ways for dot-coms to trim the fat without resorting to layoffs? According to a study released Wednesday by Gartner, the answer is a resounding yes The study, "Nine Ways to Cut Costs and Save E-BusinessInitiatives," outlines the ways in which chief information officers can improve the cash flow of e-tailers by focusing on changes to inform...

Although the number of electronic income tax returns filed through the first week of March in the U.S. rose 36 percent compared to last year, many more consumers are spurning online tax filing methods because they do not provide enough security, ease and versatility According to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), more than 35 million people f...

Despite the general reluctance of Canadians toshop online, there are new signs of e-commerce growth in Canada "Towards the end of this year, we'll really start to see the critical mass(in Canada) starting to adopt online shopping, and on the business-to-business side as well we expect a lot of growth," Forrester Research analyst Jordan Kendall told...

When the Andersen professional services firm recently surveyed e-commerce customers, nearly half said that e-tailers who also sell from a physical location provide better customer service. More than three-quarters of respondents said they have had both online and offline contact with e-tailers These findings are a reminder of how much the e-commerc...

A pressing question for e-tailers this year is whether consumer apprehension about the overall economy is going to cause a drop in online spending. So far, Internet purchasing levels have increased steadily year after year. But with consumer confidence hovering near a low, could 2001 be the year that Web shopping falls off the map? ...

Internet shopping network Bigsmart.com has agreed to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that its e-commerce marketplace operates as an illegal pyramid scheme. The settlement calls for the company to pay US$5 million in consumer redress Under the agreement, Bigsmart.com will also have to post a $500,000 performance bond beforeunderta...

Not a day goes by without yet another report of massive high-tech layoffs and lowered financial expectations -- not to mention the economic slowdown, stock prices in steep decline and the ongoing series of dot-com closures. But underneath most radar screens, a group of e-commerce sites are getting ahead in the New Economy. These e-businesses are n...

Pure plays that have already achieved significant scale, and niche players that have already built loyal customer bases, are likely to achieve success in the next stage of e-commerce evolution, according to a report released Mondayby The Boston ConsultingGroup However, the report also said that the greatest e-business opportunity belongs to traditi...

In another blow for the viability of high-ticket item online auctions, the hyped live bidding of an exclusive set of Marilyn Monroe nudephotographs on eBay ended without a sale Thursday evening "Of course we're disappointed that the featured items did not meet thereserves, but that's the nature of the auction business," eBay spokesperson Kevin Purs...

Five months after unveiling one of the Internet's first home appliances, 3Com said Wednesday that it will discontinue offering its Web-surfing "nerve center for the home," dubbed "Audrey," in an effort to cut costs and reach profitability 3Com said it hopes to cut US$1 billion out of its operating costs by the end of its upcoming fiscal year. The c...

Despite mounting evidence that the global economy is slowing, total worldwide retail e-commerce is expected to reach US$550 billion in 2001, a 92 percent increase from 2000, according to a report released Tuesday by eMarketer "The Internet is alive and well and very resilient," eMarketer chief executive officer Geoff Ramsey told the E-Commerce Time...

Two weeks after announcing it was laying off 77 employees to cut costs, computer software and hardware e-tailer Egghead.comsaid its chief financial officer, John Labbett, is leaving to "pursue a new opportunity closer to his home in Los Angeles." Egghead has been struggling considerably of late, but Labbett is not leaving the company completely in ...

Online toy sales are on track to grow from US$793 million in 2000 to$1.2 billion by 2002, according to a report released Wednesday by The NPD Group When consumers were asked which Web site they would consider buying toysfrom online in the next six months, Amazon dominated with a 23 percent share,followed by eBay with a distant 15 percent.

Amazon jumped ahead of eBay during the month of February tobecome e-commerce's most visited Web site, according to a study releasedTuesday by Jupiter Media Metrix Amazon rose from the No. 11 position overall in January to No. 10 lastmonth with a marginal increase of 71,000 unique visitors, to 18.0 million. However, eBay fell from 10th to 12th with ...

With the deadline for filing U.S. tax returns barely a month away, Intuit and H&R Block have shown no sign of abandoning their dominant status in the online tax preparation and filing sector However, despite battling to a certain extent for control of the same consumers in a specialized market, each of the Internet tax powerhouses has also been abl...

They say that for the one-year anniversary, paper is the appropriate gift For the one-year anniversary of the Nasdaq Composite Index's all-time high, the almost unavoidable choice is a loss on paper....

Federal prosecutors issued an indictment on Friday against three eBay usersfor self-bidding on their own art auctions in an attempt to spike bidprices. The indictment alleges that the three men used 40 different names on eBay to place over 50 false bids on paintings they auctioned online from November 1998 to June 2000, including afake Richard Die...