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It may not have been noticed in the whirlwind of online transactions on Web sites like eBay or Amazon, but e-commerce turned 25 on Tuesday. On March 4, 1983, the husband-wife team of Alex Randall and Cameron Hall quietly launched a business revolution that was then the stuff of dreams, when their ye...

A spammer is going to prison, thanks to a ruling by a divided Virginia Supreme Court. The state's high court on Friday upheld the first felony conviction for illegal spamming in the U.S. when it ruled 4-3 that Virginia's antispamming law did not violate the free speech rights of Jeremy Jaynes. "This...

eBay has reached a settlement with MercExchange in a case that had bounced around several courts and prompted a landmark Supreme Court decision. The San Jose, Calif.-based online auctioneer will purchase three patents, including technology central to its vaunted "Buy It Now" feature, from Great Fall...

When in doubt about buying a stock, ask a friend -- or rather, a million friends, Marcus New says. New, 38, has launched -- relaunched, actually -- Stockhouse.com, a community of investment experts who provide input on stocks that are hot, lukewarm or downright pestilent. Stockhouse.com, a product o...

The precarious nature of data security -- and accounts' vulnerability to hackers -- came to light Wednesday when Finjan said it had found a cache of more than 8,700 stolen File Transfer Protocol server credentials. The stolen account information, containing usernames, passwords and server addresses,...

So, Google's latest downturn is a reflection of a free fall in the U.S. economy? Not exactly. Google shares dropped nearly 5 percent in the wake of a report by research firm comScore that pointed to a flattening in clicks on the site's ads. comScore reported flat year-to-year performance in Google's...

Television networks are still figuring out how to corral the profit potential of the digital video recorder, and ABC is the latest player to make a move. The Disney-owned network will offer programs free to Cox Communications cable subscribers who have Cox's video-on-demand service. Atlanta-based Co...

Another lawsuit against Microsoft reportedly has received the go-ahead to proceed. This time, a federal judge in Seattle approved a class action suit against the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant over alleged marketing claims that various computers labeled as "Vista Capable" actually were not suit...

Businesses have data storage issues -- but so do individuals. The former problem is being addressed; the latter is a relatively untapped market. That is likely the thinking behind EMC's acquisition of Pi. EMC, a Hopkinton, Mass.-based storage vendor, is acquiring privately held Pi, a Seattle-based s...

Shares of Georgia-based data-services provider ChoicePoint jumped by nearly half Thursday over their previous closing price after the firm announced that UK-based publisher and Lexis Nexis owner Reed Elsevier is buying it for $4.1 billion. ChoicePoint stock rose by 43.26 percent, to $48.22 by midday...

A $2.2 billion deal 3Com had been planning involving a private equity group and a Chinese telecommunications firm apparently fell apart Wednesday over security concerns. 3Com, a Marlborough, Mass.-based network equipment manufacturer, had agreed in September to accept an offer of $5.30 per share fro...

High-definition video enthusiasts are going to be looking at a Blu-ray world. That outlook was assured Tuesday when Toshiba officially backed away from the HD DVD format against Sony's heavily fortified Blu-ray technology. The Blu-ray format had gathered momentum in recent months, having won over a ...

Dell has added another member to its growing family of acquisitions, although this latest addition already had the Dell pedigree, in a sense. The computer maker agreed to buy e-mail services provider MessageOne for about $155 million in cash. The addition of MessageOne is largely an all-in-the-famil...

Sony Ericsson has debuted a new handset, the Xperia X1 -- its first to operate on the Windows Mobile operating system. Microsoft announced the collaboration as the Mobile World Congress got under way in Barcelona, Spain. The deal could be a major coup for Sony Ericsson, which holds a 50 percent stak...

Amazon's new stock buyback program and its newly stated goals to retire outstanding debt appear to be a good fit for a company that seems to be in an aggressive mode, according to analysts. "It's certainly not going to put a huge dent in their cash coffers," said Michael Souers, a retail analyst wit...

The era of the virtual bank appears to have taken a major step toward reality with the unveiling of Remote Deposit Capture from CheckFree. The company's new technology could ultimately mean consumers can avoid a trip to the bank to deposit checks by simply making such transactions online. The techno...

As Yahoo continues to overhaul the focus of its music business, the company will migrate its online music subscription customers in the coming months to Rhapsody America. Yahoo will shut down its Music Unlimited service and divert subscribers to Rhapsody, a digital music venture of MTV Networks and ...

Aided by a more stabilized sales showing for its video game category, Sony reported a healthy bounce in profits for the third quarter. The Tokyo-based firm's PlayStation business halted a streak of six consecutive money-losing quarters, while its core electronics segment -- which includes liquid-cry...

Microsoft thought five years of oversight was long enough, and states that had fought the software giant over alleged monopolistic practices thought five more years were in order. Neither side got what it wanted. Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a federal district judge in Seattle, ruled on Tuesday to extend...

Barely a week after eBay announced a change in leadership, the online auctioneer unveiled a major switch in strategy. The company plans to reduce by half the up-front fees it charges users to list their items on its platform. The strategy, unveiled by John Donahoe, the company's incoming chief execu...