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You may never have heard of one Jim Geringer, but as governor of the great state of Wyoming, he is making some serious noise about taxing Internet purchases. Joining a chorus of government voices from coast to coast, Geringer is prone to sweeping pronouncements about the potential of e-commerce...

Several months ago, industry observers were writing the epitaph for name-your-own-price e-tailer Priceline.com. Here we are less than a year later, and Priceline just turned a profit. Almost unheard of in the current new economy, Priceline actually made some real money. Okay, it only works out t...

Perhaps the most ironic development in the ongoing struggle of music file-sharing service Napster is that the site spawned an entire industry of digital music. Because Napster has found itself more focused on litigation than on doing business, its archrivals in the recording industry have stepped...

E-commerce is suffering from a severe case of nearsightedness. As a result of their strenuous efforts to survive in a volatile economy, e-tailers are only able to see what's right in front of them. It's not easy being the novelty act when even the headliners are in a slump. There is, however, a...

If we chronicle the evolution of electronic commerce via the headlines, the conventional wisdom is that online privacy is Job One. If online privacy really is a top priority of legislators, company owners and watchdog organizations, that's a good thing. However, the more ink privacy consumes in l...

Of everything e-commerce participants have learned so far, one rather retro lesson has taken on new meaning: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Or free anything else, for that matter. Although Internet users used to love and even expect free connections, shipping, e-mail, and other assorted ...

It appears there is a whole lot of window surfing going on at e-tail Web sites and not enough buying. Why can't e-commerce close the sale? What's so alluring about the brick-and-mortar environment? Especially when the real-world store is selling the same merchandise at a higher price? These qu...

Whatever the cause, Walmart.com and BlueLight.com have not lived up to expectations. Not so unexpectedly, Kmart announced it would buy all shares of BlueLight.com that it does not already own, and at almost the same moment, Wal-Mart announced its own intention to buy all minority interests in Wal...

This could well go down in history as the summer the U.S. government finally woke up and recognized electronic commerce as something more than a passing fad. As the headlines harp on with the theme of dot-com mayhem and new economy crisis, the government is quietly increasing its role in the deve...

On Monday -- the same day the company announced second-quarter results bordering on dismal -- Amazon and America Online revealed a new agreement in which the giant Internet service provider will invest US$100 million in cash-strapped Amazon. At the end of the day, investors and pundits were left...

Will we ever understand the Web shopper? Or is it possible that e-tailers, pundits and analysts have over-complicated the elusive online buyer? Without an understanding of who's shopping and what they want, even the best operations could easily crumble. A classic case of missing the trees while ...

My job is to keep my eyes and ears open and try to put some perspective on Web merchandising and online transactions. (You'll notice I did not use the word "spin." I said "perspective.") What is most important in my line of work is to keep myself grounded and not allow myself to be overly impres...

Reports of security glitches and inadvertent revelations of user identities on Web sites no longer carry the shock value they once did. That's because they have materialized time after time, causing consumers to become a bit more numb with each incident. By now it is almost de rigeur to hear of ...

Like many regretful TV viewers, I missed the first season of "The Sopranos" on HBO. Not to worry, since the whole season is available for sale on videotape. I decided to use an online shopping bot to find the best price after it became clear that I was going to spend at least US$100 in a brick-an...

In most parts of the country, it was a news item that was easy to miss, but it was front page news in New Orleans when Lawrence E. Williams became the first person tried under the 1998 federal identity fraud statute. In all, Williams, 22, was charged with 14 counts of identity fraud. When it be...

In retrospect, all of the signs were there, pointing to the eventual demise of Internet grocery delivery service Webvan. It didn't take a lot of map reading or compass checking to see that Webvan was on the road to closure and bankruptcy, not new funding and profitability. In the dot-com world,...

Whether the term "pure-play" is destined to disappear from the e-commerce lexicon altogether is up for debate, but when it comes to banking, consumers have made themselves clear. Given that banking online with their regular bank has not exactly dazzled consumers, the outlook for pure-play banks...

Europe quietly took a giant step forward last week, moving a bit closer to the goal of letting consumers shop online without borders. In a reversal of its previous stance, the European Commission announced that it is softening its position on who has the legal authority to govern international e-...

If the first era of e-commerce was all about survival of the fittest, with all participants operating independently and competing for market share, the new era of online selling may have more to do with collaboration. Enter NetChoice, the recently established lobbying group that was formed to wa...

E-commerce industry insiders and pundits are acting out their own version of the reality TV show "Survivor," wondering aloud which dot-com is going to be the next player kicked off the Net. Some companies are obvious candidates for banishment, while others, such as those in the online pharmacy ...