Beth Cox

This could get interesting: Less than a month after the major Hollywood film studios launched Movielink, RealNetworks and cable TV movie operation Starz Encore Group are launching a broadband online video on-demand movie service to be sold via subscription. The new service will be called Starz On Demand and RealNetworks and Starz said it will […]

A handful of companies accused of selling phony domain names such as “.usa” have agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which had accused them of operating a scam that may have taken as much as $300,000 from consumers. Sophisticated users, of course, would not be caught up in anything like this, but […]

The correlation between an online shopper’s comfort level with credit card number security and how much is actually spent on the Internet may be a good deal stronger than many analysts had thought, at least according to one look at consumer spending habits. New York City-based Orbiscom, which markets what it calls Controlled Payment Number […]

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, turned out to be a red-letter day for a lot of online retailers, as consumers not only flocked to real-world stores, but also spent a lot of time letting their fingers do the shopping at a variety of e-commerce sites. BizRate.com said its figures show that Nov. 29, the […]

Just in time to catch the serious holiday buyer, shopping search and compare operation DealTime scored a pact with EarthLink that makes it the power behind the ISP’s shopping channel. The deal calls for New York City-based DealTime to provide Atlanta-based EarthLink with a customized, co-branded version of its shopping service. Financial arrangements were not […]

Continuing a push into Europe, Ticketmaster is acquiring BILLETnet, one of the leading online ticketing companies in Denmark, from Post Danmark A/S. The move follows on the heels of similar expansion efforts in Norway and the Netherlands. Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster , which is majority owned by USA Interactive , said more such acquisitions are likely […]

The Federal Trade Commission says it has obtained a U.S. District Court settlement in a case involving a somewhat elaborate scam that resulted in whopping telephone bills for connections to various Internet porn sites. The FTC said that thousands of consumers were billed an average of $127 apiece for so-called “videotext” services that they didn’t […]

It’s the holidays, which means no rest for weary retailers — or for consumers deluged by spam. In fact, the holidays could actually prompt an increase in unwanted commercial e-mail, according to several anti-spam operations. David Strickler, founder of e-mail protection company MailWise, said the holiday season could result in a surge that could make […]

After having sailed through what he called “significant industry challenges,” the chairman of name-your-own price travel company Priceline.com has again named a CEO, appointing company president Jeffery H. Boyd to the position. Boyd had been sharing the CEO duties with Chairman Richard S. Braddock. Braddock named himself to the top job in May of last […]

In a deal similar to its arrangement with bookseller Borders, Internet retailer Amazon.com will take over operation of the CDNow online music store. The move comes as CDNow’s owner, Germany’s media conglomerate Bertelsmann, continues to cut back on its e-commerce efforts. Bertelsmann began distancing itself from the Internet a year ago when e-commerce group manager […]

A new industry report on the persistent fraud problem that dogs e-commerce merchants, from the giants like Amazon.com down to mom-and-pop storefronts, predicts that crooks and deadbeats will create losses of an estimated $285 million over the holiday season in the United States. The good news is that fully two-thirds of U.S. merchants are taking […]

Used to be that maybe if you had a friend who worked in circulation at the local newspaper, you sometimes could get a tip on upcoming sales from the pre-printed circulars put out by the big chain stores. It didn’t happen all that often and it was pretty much a no-harm, no foul situation — […]