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High oil prices. Natural disasters. Slumping economy. Pink slip epidemics. None of that appeared to bother shoppers as they stormed Web outlets on the day after Thanksgiving, the day that's become known as Black Friday. According to Patty Freeman Evans, a retail analyst with Jupiter Research in New ...

Some 72 percent of the businesses evaluated by a Boston-based research firm scored poorly on their policies for re-using their customers' personal data for marketing purposes, but the researchers maintain that more companies are sensitive to privacy issues than ever before and are acting on that awa...

Use of Web-based e-mail is on the rise and online marketers should be wary about it. That's the thinking of Lyris Technologies, a subsidiary of J.D. Halsey, that released a survey yesterday revealing 64 percent of consumers used Web-based services like Hotmail and Yahoo to check their e-mail compare...

Less than half the consumers using the Internet feel safe shopping online, according to a survey expected to be released today by Symantec, a maker of anti-virus and security software. The survey, based on a sample of 2,400 consumers, revealed that some 60 percent of those respondents felt less than...

Their numbers may not jibe but two prominent research firms agree on one thing: the holidays will be merry for online retailers. Forrester Research and JupiterResearch released their holiday sales projections for online retailers this week and both predicted double-digit increases for the period. Du...

Rising gas prices may be withering consumer confidence these days, but online retailers see a silver lining in the disturbing trend. "People are going to be less inclined to drive to shopping centers," Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton Junction, N.J. told...

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D Magazine." The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D ...

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D Magazine." The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D ...

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D Magazine." The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D ...

In a deal harking back to the days of dot-com euphoria, online e-commerce powerhouse eBay announced a US$2.6 billion deal to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype, a pioneer in free Voice over IP (VoIP) services on the Internet. The mega-sale drew fire from some quarters and praise from others. "I think th...

Online merchants selling digital products for small sums of money will find it easier to do so through the Internet's best known online payment service, PayPal. That's because the company has announced a new "micropayments" pricing scheme to make selling low-priced goods through PayPal -- especially...

Some 72 percent of the businesses evaluated by a Boston-based research firm scored poorly on their policies for re-using their customers' personal data for marketing purposes, but the researchers maintain that more companies are sensitive to privacy issues than ever before and are acting on that awa...

Renting entertainment could be the wave of the future, and Microsoft isn't about to miss it. The company that brought us "Janus," the digital rights management (DRM) scheme that allows subscription music services like Napster On The Go to exist, has announced a deal with Exent, of Bethesda, Md., a p...

In an aggressive move to entice dial-up surfers to upgrade to broadband service, BellSouth announced a deal with Napster yesterday that the Baby Bell hopes websters will find hard to refuse. Under the agreement, new subscribers to BellSouth's FastAccess DSL service will get a free 256-megabyte digit...

Online sales approached US$39 billion in the quarter ending in June, according to a report from Boston-based Forrester Research. That's a 25 percent increase over a comparable period last year and a slight increase over the quarter ending in April when sales were US$38 billion. Forrester analyst Car...

Another sign that e-commerce has come of age appeared yesterday as JupiterResearch predicted online advertising would reach US$18.9 billion by 2010 -- almost double last year's gross of $9.6 billion. Much of that revenue growth will be stoked by search engine advertising, which garnered 40 percent o...

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) -- the technology used to create feeds of information directly to a user from Web sites and blogs -- is in its nascent stages of development, but it's one marketers should be taking a hard look at as a future vehicle for their wares. Marketers who shun RSS now might rea...

Sloth can be a deadly sin, or at least a potentially litigious one, and the rise of blogging on the Internet has peaked concern about this pitfall. The issue arises because bloggers, many or most of them amateurs, often overdose on cut-and-paste editing, which can result in copyright violations, Pau...

Claria Corp. makes some US$100 million a year selling pop-up advertising on the Internet, but with the launch of its PersonalWeb product this month, it's hoping to hitch a ride on a bigger gravy train. With PersonalWeb, a permission-based vehicle for slotting customized advertising into Web pages, t...

Web surfers are annoyed as hell and they're doing something about it. That's the thrust of the findings in a survey to be released next week by Hostway, a Chicago-based Web site hosting service with more than 400,000 global clients. According to preliminary information from the survey, obtained by t...