Janis Mara

The use of RSS technology has been touted as a spam-free alternative to e-newsletters but the concept of has been dogged by certain limitations. Chief among them, for publishers, is an advertising model to support the popular feeds. A new online ad network, RSSAds, is gearing up to help publishers get over that hurdle. The […]

Yahoo! and Microsoft are giving serious thought to the idea of e-mail “postage” that costs senders a small fee, company officials said. The admissions come in the wake of Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ January comments in Davos, Switzerland suggesting the spam problem will be defeated by a number of different solutions, but “in the long […]

Microsoft launches an international, multi-million-dollar online and print ad campaign for its Windows Server System this week, highlighting individuals who work with the product and showing how it has helped them succeed at their jobs. The case-study-oriented campaign first rolls out online and in U.S. information technology print publications, then makes its international debut around […]

Ask Jeeves Hits Home Run Second-tier search engine Ask Jeeves knocked one out of the ballpark, more than tripling its fourth-quarter profit thanks to increased ad sales. The company’s shares rose 608 percent in 2003 and it also increased its forecast for 2004 profit and revenue when it reported earnings Wednesday. For 2004, Ask Jeeves […]

Search engine giant Google has demanded that newly launched adult search site Booble take down its Web site, a Booble spokesman said Thursday. Booble officials claim its site is a parody, while Google disputes this assertion. Twenty-four hours after Booble launched on Jan. 20, the Google Trademark Enforcement Team e-mailed the company asking it to […]

In an escalating legal battle with big implications for search marketing, Google has been hit with a lawsuit claiming that its sale of the terms “American blind” and “American blinds” as keywords involves trademark infringement. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory filed a complaint against the search giant, as well as its distribution partners, AOL, Ask […]

DoubleClick , the largest provider of online ad technology, beat Wall Street’s expectations and raised its guidance for 2004, reporting earnings of $3.8 million, or $0.03 a share, on revenue of $72.9 million for 2003’s fourth quarter. A poll by Thomson/First Call reported a consensus of analyst expectations for earnings of $2.75 million, or $0.02 […]

Online direct marketer Digital Impact met expectations and nailed its second profitable quarter, scoring a $0.01 per-share profit for its fiscal third quarter compared to a net loss of $0.01 per share for last year’s third quarter. In a stagnant e-mail marketing environment slowed by concerns over spam, Digital Impact had an approximately 20 percent […]

Espotting, Freenet Extend Deal Paid search listing provider Espotting Media has extended and deepened its agreement with German ISP freenet to provide power search and content. Results for freenet’s search pages were previously supplied by Overture. London-based Espotting’s top five German listings will now appear on freenet search result pages as sponsored links. For a […]

Marketers concerned about legitimate e-mail blocked as spam will find confirmation of their fears in a report released Tuesday. The costs of such blocking will nearly double, soaring to $419 million in 2008 from $230 million in 2003, according to Jupiter Research, which shares a parent company with this publication. Ironically, the percentage of wrongly […]

Anti-spam software company Brightmail has added a new arrow to its quiver with the Brightmail Reputation Service, which identifies prime sources of spam and blocks the bad stuff while (hopefully) ensuring delivery of the good. The service measures the amount of legitimate e-mail versus spam messages originating from a given IP address and creates detailed […]

If Bill Gates is correct, it may be the end of the world as we know it — or the end of spam, anyway. The founder of Microsoft predicted a spam-free world by 2006 in an interview with talk show host Charlie Rose in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, according to a company spokesman. The event occurred […]