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Online brokerage E*Trade announced Thursday that its board of directors has approved a plan, known in Wall Street parlance as a poison pill, aimed at thwarting a hostile takeover attempt. E*Trade said that its so-called shareholder rights plan is "designed to enhance the board's ability to prote...

More than 20 million Europeans visited business and finance sites from their homes in May, according to research released Wednesday by Jupiter MMXI. The Internet research firm said that most Internet banking and finance consumers were visiting local brands offering online banking, financial info...

Music downloading from Napster has been suspended, at least temporarily, while the file-swapping site installs filters in order to comply with a court order prohibiting the unauthorized exchange of copyrighted music. "File transfers have been temporarily suspended while Napster upgrades the datab...

Mirroring a move made by Amazon.com two weeks ago, Barnesandnoble.com announced Monday that it will offer free shipping for consumers purchasing two or more items. In a jab at Amazon, which raised the prices on some items when it offered to pick up the shipping tab for customers, Barnesandnoble.c...

Any continued weakness in the European economy could have a major impact on the demand for information technology (IT) products and services over the next three years, according to a report released Monday by IDC. The Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm said that with indicators pointin...

Pitney Bowes and former online postage provider E-Stamp announced Thursday that they have settled all pending litigation between the two companies. E-Stamp said the litigation, including claims by Pitney Bowes that E-Stamp infringed on seven of its patents, as well as antitrust counterclaims by E...

Yahoo! inked a deal with Akamai Technologies on Wednesday that will allow the Internet portal to deliver geographically targeted, local advertising to Web surfers. Santa Clara, California-based Yahoo! plans to use Akamai's targeting technology, called EdgeScape, to pinpoint a surfer's location. Y...

Established professional Internet services companies have the best opportunity to gain market share in a shifting environment -- despite the flexibility and creativity of their emerging and mid-level competitors -- according to research released Wednesday by IDC. "Customer requirements are changi...

Online brokerage Ameritrade announced a major restructuring Wednesday. The reorganization creates two business units, one serving private clients and the other institutional clients. "We are in a cyclical business and Ameritrade has faced adverse conditions for more than a year," Ameritrade chi...

The number of dot-com job cuts fell for the second month in a row and reached the lowest point since November, according to a report released Tuesday by executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. CGC reported that 31 percent fewer employees got pink slips from their dot-com employers...

Controversial song-swapping site Napster announced Tuesday that it has signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the UK's Association of Independent Music (AIM) and the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA). The agreement authorizes Napster's use of hundreds of thousands of tracks b...

Worldwide spending on Internet services reached almost US$22 billion in 2000, according to a report released Monday by IDC. "As a result of the dot-com bubble burst, there's been much speculation that the opportunity for Internet services firms has evaporated," said Pooneh Fooladi, senior analys...

In Part 1 of a two-part series, the E-Commerce Times began to dispel the seven deadly myths of B2B e-commerce. Analysts told us that, contrary to what many people think, B2B is less about making money than making business connections, and that success in B2C e-commerce might not translate into su...

Several companies that used bogus "rebate" checks to con consumers into signing up for Internet yellow page listings agreed to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that their operations were deceptive and violated federal law, the FTC said Friday. According to the FTC, the defendan...

Despite the importance business-to-business (B2B) dealings have in the e-commerce picture, several myths and misperceptions still exist, according to analysts. In a two-part series, the E-Commerce Times dispels the seven deadly myths of B2B. Myth #1: B2B is about the money. In fact, B2B is not ab...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Thursday that it has sued another Internet pyramid scheme that conned thousands of consumers. "Defendants operate what is commonly known as a 'pyramid scheme' that enriches the defendants at the expense of the majority of the participants in their s...

T1msn, a joint venture of Microsoft and Mexican phone company Telmex, said Thursday it is acquiring Yupi Internet and launching YupiMSN, a Spanish-language portal. With the acquisition, T1msn, whose audience has grown to more than 5 million unique users since its launch a year ago, will expand i...

Following in the footsteps of private industry, the U.S. government is turning to e-business to fuel its supply chain, improve its employment programs and dispose of its surplus goods. "We're seeing government start to use some of [the] mechanisms private companies have already been using," Joh...

Travelocity.com and Yahoo! announced Wednesday that they have inked a deal to create interactive multimedia broadcast centers for Travelocity customers. While some might see Travelocity's announcement as a desperate bid to compete with travel mega-site Orbitz, Morningstar.com analyst Langdon Heal...

A new trial date in November has been set in the copyright infringement case brought by Tee Vee Tunes against MP3.com, after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the case Tuesday, citing a mathematical error by the jury. In April, a jury found that MP3.com must pay TVT $292,000 for copyright in...