Beth Cox

The e-commerce community was breathing a sigh of relief today after Congress finally sent the President a bill to continue the moratorium on new Internet taxes for two more years. Groups as diverse as the Direct Marketing Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures were hailing the vote. President Bush said he would sign […]

Name-your-own-price travel company Priceline.com Inc. has disclosed that it paid out about $10 million in airfare refunds in September following the terrorist attacks on the United States. In a 10-Q quarterly filing with the SEC, the company also said that its economic forecasting is “very challenging” and that although demand for airline tickets has substantially […]

In a marketing deal that could “shake” up the fast food industry, online auction king eBay and fast-food giant Burger King have cooked up what they are billing as the first Internet-based loyalty program in the burger-and-fries biz. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay and Miami, Fla.-based Burger King Corp. said the strategic alliance, set to launch […]

E*Trade Group Inc., furthering its effort to diversify, opened a second bricks-and-mortar financial superstore, this one in Denver, offering customers personalized interaction with licensed financial service advisers.

FTD.com , the profitable Internet and telephone marketer of flowers and specialty gifts, is acquiring National Flora Inc. from Gerald Stevens Inc. in a deal valued at about $9 million. Downers Grove, Ill.-based FTD.com, which last month reported an in-the-black first fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30, said the deal was funded from its existing cash […]

Shares of Internet travel companies were declining sharply today following the crash of an American Airlines A300 Airbus with 255 people on board shortly after takeoff at John F. Kennedy International airport in Queens. There were apparently no survivors aboard the aircraft, bound for the Dominican Republic, and there was no word on what caused […]

E*Trade Group Inc. said its E*Trade Mortgage unit continues to further its diversification strategy, and just passed the $4 billion in mortgage origination milestone. The mortgage operation is a part of E*Trade’s banking subsidiary. The company said another $1 billion in locked loans is in the pipeline. Menlo Park, Calif.-based E*Trade, which recently upped the […]

Egghead.com, the bankrupt Menlo Park, Calif.-based e-tailer that suspended all operations on Oct. 28, says it is continuing discussions “with several interested parties who are intent on re-activating an Egghead Web site and once again operating the business.” Egghead.com filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 15, saying at the time that it had reached an agreement […]

It’s been a long, strange road for the beleaguered Outpost.com, but the pioneer Internet computer goods retailer is still in business and has finally found a home, announcing the completion of its cash merger with Fry’s Electronics Inc. and going private. The Kent, Conn.-based company ran into the Internet recession last spring, slashing its work […]

There are some things you just can’t buy without seeing them in a catalog first, and Amazon.com, which boasts “Earth’s Biggest Selection,” is taking a piece of that action by making a $5 million investment in the company that operates CatalogCity.com. Amazon.com Inc. said it has made an all-stock, non-cash investment in Altura International, a […]

Auction giant eBay, moving to shore up its ambitious “Auction for America” charitable fund-raising effort launched after the events of Sept. 11, announced a new round of corporate sponsors, including Microsoft, Pepsi and AOL Time Warner, among others. There’s no doubt the motivation is pure, but eBay certainly took on a gargantuan task when it […]

Bermuda-based IP bandwidth provider Global Crossing Ltd. won a 12-year, $700 million contract to develop and manage global wide area data and voice network infrastructure for IT services company Computer Sciences Corp. . And not to be outdone, Computer Sciences, in turn said that Global Crossing would pay it $400 million to manage its information […]