Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK — California enacted into law Wednesday what might be the nation’s toughest anti-spam measure, promising big penalties for those spammers. But past experience shows how difficult spammers are to catch — even if they’re breaking the law. Currently, 35 states have anti-spam measures on the books, and Congress is debating eight different federal […]

While Overture Services and Google continue the war for an edge in the paid search market, local search is shaping up to be the latest battleground. On Thursday, Google rolled out a demo of its local search service, which allows users to segment their searches by location, including address or zip code. For example, a […]

Yahoo! announced on Monday the integration of Yahoo! Shopping with product search, following the trend of the blurring between e-commerce and search, while adding another service to appeal to small businesses. Yahoo! Product Search kicks off with 17,000 merchants and “millions” of items already part of the Yahoo! Shopping platform. This will catapult Yahoo! to […]

Coremetrics on Monday renamed its Web analytics platform from Marketforce to Online Analytics 2004, rolling out a number of improvements designed to help clients turn information into revenue-generating action. Like Marketforce, Online Analytics 2004 is built on Coremetric’s LIVE (lifetime individual visitor experience) profiles, which track consumers as they interact with the Web site over […]

Shopping search engine DealTime on Monday said it would change its name to Shopping.com, as it attempts to make a name for itself in the merging worlds of search and e-commerce. Along with the new name, the company unveiled an altered interface, designed to fully integrate the consumer-review functionality obtained through the Epinions merger and […]

While Hurricane Isabel did not cause as much damage as feared, the storm wreaked havoc on weather sites, bringing huge increases in traffic and challenges to maintaining availability. According to comScore Media Metrix, weather sites showed a huge spike in traffic thanks to the hurricane. Compared to the average for the previous four Thursdays, Weather.com […]

Paid search company FindWhat.com said on Friday it is renegotiating its agreement to buy European paid listings company Espotting after it found problems with the company’s finances. The announcement casts some doubt as to whether the $163 million merger will go through. FindWhat.com said it might walk away from the deal if it cannot get […]

The California legislature passed a stringent anti-spam bill last week that bans unsolicited commercial e-mails and gives state residents the right to sue violators for up to $1 million in damages. The bill, SB 186, now awaits action by Gov. Gray Davis, whose signature would make the state’s anti-spam legislation among the toughest in the […]

Spam filtering company Cloudmark on Thursday rolled out a new e-mail rating system that is designed to address the growing problem of unfairly filtered legitimate commercial e-mail messages. The Cloudmark Rating System builds on its SpamNet system for filtering unwanted e-mail. Businesses can sign up online and receive a Cloudmark e-mail address to add to […]

The Vendare Group Buys Pop-Under Network Performance marketing company The Vendare Group announced on Wednesday that it acquired pop-under provider TrafficMarketplace from VUNet USA, Vivendi-Universal’s online division. Exact financial terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed. The deal will give The Vendare Group a self-service ad network, TMP Express. TrafficMarketplace claims to serve ad […]

Overture Services announced on Wednesday its launch in Spain, marking the third international market the search company has entered this year. Overture, which has agreed to be acquired by Yahoo!, said its distribution network in Spain reaches 71 percent of that country’s 14 million Internet users. It includes many of Spain’s top portals and Internet […]

Sun Microsystems launched an online ad campaign to drive viewers to the Webcast of its quarterly product launch meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. The push featured a variety of awareness measures. Two weeks ago, Sun began advertising the event on its site and in select online ads. The ads drove users to a splash page […]