Beth Cox

Yahoo! broadened its revenue base and gave its shoppers access to more pre-purchase reassurance by signing a deal with Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and ConsumerReports.org. Financial specifics were not disclosed, but Yahoo! said that under the terms of the agreement, it will receive an undisclosed share of revenue from sales of pay-per-view […]

Travel seems to be the summer-hot e-commerce sector these days, seeing actual growth in dollars spent online as well as more competition. And just to underscore the increased activity comes a deal with AOL that will boost exposure for LastMinuteTravel.com. The Atlanta-based listing service, featuring discounted prices for airline seats and hotel rooms that are […]

Just days after launching a redesigned Betty Crocker Web site, giant food company General Mills has won an arbitration case against a cybersquatter who had registered the bettycroker.com domain, apparently to win the eyeballs of poor typists for his advertisers. The dispute was heard by the National Arbitration Forum under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute […]

Still hiking up the turnaround trail, name-your-own-price e-commerce site Priceline.com today rolled out a new product offering — a resort getaway service that lets the vacation-needy stipulate what some highly pampered downtime is worth. Norwalk, CT-based Priceline said the resorts listed in the service are in top vacation spots such as Orlando, Puerto Rico, the […]

Founded as an online retailing pioneer in 1995, beleaguered Cyberian Outpost Inc. (a.k.a. Outpost.com) found a way out of its difficulties today when it agreed to be purchased by PC Connection Inc. Merrimack, N.H.-based PC Connection, a direct marketer of personal computers, said the deal is being structured as a stock-for-stock, tax-free merger and comes […]

Amazon.com dodged another FTC probe today when the agency’s staff concluded that although the online retailer likely engaged in some deceptive business practices regarding the privacy of users of its Alexa service, no enforcement action is contemplated. The mistake occurred when Amazon said that it did not keep personally identifiable information in Alexa’s database of […]

PricewaterhouseCoopers and Hewlett-Packard Co. today unveiled an ambitious plan to develop and market new Internet solutions for the aviation industry through a jointly established Aviation Solution Center. The new center will include people, products and services from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ aviation consulting practice and HP’s infrastructure and consulting services team. Both customer-facing business processes and behind-the-scenes operations […]

Amazon.com won a major victory today when the Federal Trade Commission rejected a petition from privacy advocates claiming that Amazon violated the law by making changes in its privacy policy last year. In a letter to Junkbusters.com President Jason Catlett and Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, FTC Consumer Protection Director Jodie […]

Microsoft Corp. got a major boost for its .NET business plan today when it signed a strategic partnership deal with QXL ricardo plc that will result in enhanced services for the pan-European online auction operation. The move puts Microsoft’s .NET operation squarely in the middle of the Internet auction game worldwide and follows on its […]

The new Orbitz air travel site, now in beta and being developed by five major airlines, represents “an increased competitive threat” to existing travel operations Expedia and Travelocity according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. And that view comes despite the recent lawsuit filed by Dallas-based Southwest Airlines alleging false advertising and unfair competition. In an […]

Boston-based Internet consulting firm C-bridge is merging with eXcelon, a Burlington-Mass.-based developer of XML-based platforms and tools, in a move that will create a new company valued at more than $100 million, with cash reserves of about $50 million. C-bridge Internet Solutions Inc. is the originator of its iSolutions approach to e-enterprise consulting and services. […]

Priceline.com’s mortgage licensee, pricelinemortgage, is on a roll, scoring its second promotional deal in 10 days, this time with SmartMoney.com, a site that offers financial news, financial planning and market tools. The co-marketing agreement calls for priceline.com to provide links to SmartMoney.com’s real estate-related content and tools within the pricelinemortgage home mortgage service. SmartMoney.com in […]