Beth Cox

Think that last rate hike on your auto insurance was outrageous? You’re not alone. Online insurance quote operation InsWeb is launching a new car insurance price index and they say rates on average are up about 40 percent since the first quarter of 2000. The Sacramento, Calif.-based company used its database of information from the […]

MasterCard International and VeriSign are teaming up to cut the risk of online fraud for e-commerce merchants by integrating some of their technologies. The deal calls for VeriSign to offer access to MasterCard’s Universal Cardholder Authentication Field (UCAF) program to up to 75,000 merchants in an effort to further secure their online transactions. Fraud and […]

Giving up on its Passport online checkout function, Microsoft launched a brand new MSN Wallet service for shoppers seeking a fast and easy checkout mechanism that remembers their credit card and shipping address data from one e-commerce site to another. A slew of name-brand partners, including upscale department store chain Nordstrom, signed on as the […]

It’s been a busy week in the telematics (in-car communications) field, capped by a Microsoft-Toyota deal in which the car maker agreed to employ Windows CE for Automotive as the heart of its new in-car “G-Book” information network. Toyota says its G-Book offering, scheduled to debut in October, “will connect people, cars and society.” And […]

Well, it’s official. The 2002 holiday forecasting season has begun, and it’s not yet Labor Day. And among the first out of the prediction blocks is comScore Networks, which issued a forecast for online fourth quarter sales of $13.8 billion, excluding travel products. That figure is up 27 percent from the fourth quarter a year […]

Discount online travel site Hotwire signed a ticket sales deal with Delta Air Lines in a marketing move that lets the site offer discounted fares at all seven of the nation’s largest full-service airlines. San Francisco-based Hotwire, a privately held company that launched in 2000 and is backed by investment firm Texas Pacific Group, lists […]

Auction giant eBay will spend $65 million to acquire ecorp Limited’s 50 percent equity interest in their joint venture for eBay Australia and eBay New Zealand. The move is not material to eBay’s financial results, and will help to solidify the San Jose, Calif.-based auction leader’s control of its international operations. “The sale price confirms […]

Firing another round in the ongoing shipping wars, Seattle-based Amazon.com further lowered the price for orders to qualify for free shipping, this time from $49 to $25. The company said it has seen “positive results” results from two months of testing with its Free Super Saver Shipping on qualifying orders over $49, and now will […]

There’s lots of competition and not everyone has figured out how to make retail work online, but e-commerce, like a certain bunny, just keeps going and going – to the tune of more than $10 billion in U.S. sales for the second quarter. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, which says that second-quarter […]

Penton Media, the Cleveland-based magazine, trade show and online company, has been warned by the New York Stock Exchange that its share price is below the threshold for continued listing. Penton, which has focused its products largely on the B2B channel, said it has acknowledged receipt of the notification said it plans to remedy the […]

The problems for Homestore just never seem to end, as witness reports that Cendant Corp. may be alleging that the online real estate play breached an acquisition agreement when it overstated its revenues for the year 2000. Homestore purchased Move.com from Cendant in an all-stock deal valued in October of 2000 at $761 million. However, […]

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said that online payment firm PayPal has agreed to stop online gambling companies from using the service to accept money from gamblers who reside in New York State. The move comes less than two months after PayPal’s records regarding use of the payment service by gamblers were subpoenaed by […]