Beth Cox

Just in time to become the prime topic at the upcoming 2nd Annual World Internet Gaming Summit, a Congressional panel has voted to amend the federal ban on interstate betting to include online gambling. The House Judiciary subcommittee on crime has voted unanimously to OK an update of the Wire Act of 1961, which bans […]

Scandal-plagued Internet real estate play Homestore.com Inc. said it has completed its internal accounting inquiry for the year 2000 and found that $36.4 million in ad revenue had been improperly recorded as independent cash transactions. The Westlake Village, Calif.-based company, whose troubles are now linked to the woes of Los Angeles-based online ad network L90 […]

Internet credit card operation NextCard Inc. , now trading for 14 cents a share, became a skeleton company today, shedding 90 percent of its employees and asking Nasdaq to delist its stock effective March 18. San Francisco-based NextCard, saw its stock crash last October when banking regulators told the company that its online banking subsidiary, […]

Somebody out there likes Priceline.com as an investment, and that somebody is Saudi billionaire Alwaleed Bin Talal, who has put a tidy $100 million into the stock of the name-your-own-price travel company over the past six months. The prince also bought $500 million in Citigroup stock , $450 million in AOL Time Warner for a […]

Microsoft is making a bold move into the customer relationship management (CRM) market, and the question being asked in executive suites at established CRM companies across the country is simply: “Will Microsoft Great Plains cause Great Pains?” Anytime the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant starts eyeing your bread-and-butter business, it’s bound to cause more than a […]

First Microsoft enters the mapping business to compete directly with AOL Time Warner’s MapQuest, and now Internet portal operation Yahoo! is deep-sixing the map service in favor of a creation of its own. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! Inc. said it is launching a brand new Yahoo! Maps platform using a custom-built technology solution from map database […]

Spam is one of the Internet’s dirty little secrets, and it’s bad enough when your mom gets targeted with porn stuff and get-rich quick schemes. But the people who prey on the public selling worthless products related to the events of Sept. 11 are among the lowest of the low. So it’s welcome news that […]

Online retailing giant Amazon.com and rival bookseller Barnes & Noble.com Inc. have settled a patent infringement lawsuit over the technology behind the one-click checkout system for Internet shoppers. The action was begun back in 1999 when Seattle-based Amazon sued B&N, alleging that its checkout technology, which allows customers store their credit card and shipping information […]

PDA maker Palm Inc. has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in a case involving Palm’s advertising claims regarding the wireless performance of its handhelds. The FTC said that Palm had claimed in ads that its PDAs come with built-in wireless access to the Internet and e-mail, as well as other common business […]

There was some action on the content front today as ISP EarthLink signed a deal with Forbes.com for financial news and MSNBC.com inked a deal to get content for its opinion section from Microsoft’s Slate online magazine. Atlanta-based EarthLink wants to provide its 4.8 million subscribers with Forbes.com’s news, content and portfolio services directly from […]

Overstock.com, an online retailer that promises “name brands at clearance prices” in a slew of categories, became the latest dot com to decide to test the waters with an initial public offering. The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $37 million. The […]

Despite a statement from Travelocity.com Inc. that a tender offer from travel company Sabre Holdings Corp. at $23 a share is inadequate, the Fort Worth, Texas-based company went ahead with its offer for all of the outstanding shares that it doesn’t already own. Sabre announced the unsolicited offer on Feb. 19. The problem is, the […]