Maura Ginty

Fresh from last week’s lawsuit filing against E-Stamp, Pitney Bowes Inc. Friday announced a similar patent infringement suit against Stamps.com Inc. Stamps.com is currently testing products which allow users to buy and print out postage over the Internet. E-Stamp is developing a similar offering. While Stamps.com has not officially responded to the filing, E-Stamp denies […]

Autobytel.com Thursday announced a joint venture with six Japanese partners to form Autobytel Japan, with plans to chase after the world’s second largest automobile market. The six Japanese partners are Intec Inc., ITOCHU Corp., Trans Cosmos Inc., Recruit Co. Ltd., Orient Corp. and e-solutions inc. Initial capitalization is expected to be around $12.2 million with […]

Lycos Inc. Wednesday said Bertelsmann AG, its Lycos Europe partner, will provide $12 million in financing to launch localized versions of Web community Tripod in each of the 12 countries where the joint venture operates. Lycos-Bertelsmann previously launched Tripod UK, Tripod France, Tripod Germany, Tripod Italy, Tripod Netherlands and Tripod Spain, and several more country […]

Amazon.com Inc. shows no signs of slowing the growth of its ever-expanding empire. The company Tuesday announced a $45 million venture with famous auction house Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. to create a joint online site. Under the agreement, Amazon.com agreed to purchase 1 million shares of Sotheby stock valued at $35 million and paid $10 million […]

Beware, ISPs, your customers may ditch you over spam. E-mail services company Bright Light Technologies, Inc. and GarterGroup Tuesday announced results from its recent spam survey, the largest poll taken to date, and found that more e-mail users are holding their ISP responsible for unsolicited e-mails. The survey of 13,000 e-mail users found that few […]

In its second wireless deal in less than two weeks, Sprint PCS Tuesday partnered with Nokia to offer Web-capable dual-band and single-band Nokia phones with service delivered through the Sprint PCS wireless network, in a deal worth up to $500 million. The contract between Sprint PCS and Nokia calls for the delivery of a minimum […]

America Online Inc. and Inktomi Corp. Monday signed a new agreement to incorporate Inktomi’s search service into AOL’s newest Web search products. AOL’s new Inktomi-driven Web search product, to be launched later this year, will give AOL and CompuServe customers access to traditional Internet search features as well as Inktomi’s new developments, such as the […]

Online auction wonder eBay Inc. may be ousted from its pedestal after a 22-hour outage that has left the company bending over backwards to compensate frustrated customers. eBay currently estimates that the outage, including the auction extensions and refunds, will reduce its second-quarter revenues by between $3 million to $5 million. The system crash, which […]

Pitney Bowes Inc. Friday announced it has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against E-Stamp Corp., alleging the company’s electronic stamp product infringes on its technology. The suit is seeking unspecified damages for the violation. E-Stamp denies the charge and plans to fight the suit, according to the Wall Street Journal report. Pitney said it holds patents […]

Cheers and Tears Custom Designs Friday launched a new division for a free e-mail forwarding service, MyEZmail.com, developed by the unit’s 14-year-old Chief Executive Officer Cameron Johnson. And this isn’t even his first online business. MyEZmail forwards all e-mail sent to the user’s @myeasymail.com account to a second e-mail address without the sender’s knowledge. The […]

Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch Thursday bought the One & Only Network, bringing another online dating site and more auction services into its growing network of online properties. The terms of the deal were not disclosed The combined services of One & Only Network and recently acquired Match.Com will make TMCS the leading provider of online matchmaking services. […]

Americans aren’t the only ones on the Net anymore. WebSideStory’s StatMarket Thursday reported Internet access from international domains has reached nearly half of all Web visits. StatMarket reported the percentage of Web traffic from foreign domains was 44 percent, nearly matching the combined traffic from commercial (.com), network (.net), educational (.edu), organization (.org), military (.mil), […]