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Traffic to retail Web sites ebbed in the final week of the holiday shopping season, according to statistics compiled by Media Metrix, providing further evidence that online shoppers completed their shopping early this year. E-tail sites saw 31.8 million unique visitors during the week ended Decembe...

Few people quibble over smart card functionality. The cards -- embedded with a memory chip that can store everything from bank balances to prescription information -- are expected to increase the level of trust in e-commerce transactions for credit card companies, Web merchants and online shoppers a...

Amazon.com ranked as one of the top online retail sites in markets worldwide during November -- the only multinational brand to do so -- according to data released Thursday by Web measurement firm Media Metrix and its European affiliate, Jupiter MMXI. Survey results for the month showed that Ama...

Although Internet advertising revenue during the third quarter experienced a 63 percent rise compared to the same period in 1999, income from Web-based ads still slid 6.5 percent from the second to third quarter this year, according to a study released Wednesday by the Internet Advertising Bureau (...

High-tech stocks continued to get slammed Wednesday after a batch of analyst downgrades and corporate earnings warnings ignited an investor selloff, toppling the major indices. The Nasdaq composite stock index fell 178.78, or 7.12 percent, to 2332.93, its lowest close in 20 months and its seventh ...

Most online financial services have yet to gain a foothold among consumers, according to a study released Wednesday by business services firm Mercer Management Consulting. As part of its report, Mercer found that the number of Internet users who had purchased insurance, loans or mortgages online la...

Educational toy e-tailer SmarterKids has narrowly edged out the powerhouse partnership of Toysrus.com and Amazon.com to secure the title of best online toy and game seller overall, according to Forrester Research rankings released Monday. Forrester said SmarterKids won its first-place showing b...

Just one month after MP3.com brought to a close its costly legal contest with industry giant Universal Music Group, the online music service has been hit by a copyright infringement lawsuit by Internet subscription site EMusic. The action charges MP3.com and its streaming service MyMP3.com with ill...

Internet grocery service HomeGrocer.com has slashed roughly 100 jobs -- the second workforce reduction in recent months -- as it continues consolidating operations with Webvan Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBVN). Webvan purchased HomeGrocer for US$1.2 billion earlier this year. The current round of layof...

Despite spending almost US$500 million over the past 12 months to improve their customer service operations, e-tailers could face a loss of some $11 billion in sales by the end of this year, according to a report released Friday by market analysis firm Datamonitor. Poor customer service all too oft...

More than half of the roughly 46 million adults in the UK have Web access and nearly a third of them are frequent online users, according to new data released Wednesday by Forrester Research. As part of its semi-annual Internet User Monitor, the research firm also found that the country's gender...

Despite the fact that high-speed Internet access has yet to take a firm hold with the vast majority of the wired public, measurement firm Nielsen//NetRatings reported Tuesday that streaming media consumption soared 65 percent over the past year. According to the report, a record 35 million online...

CenterSpan Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: CSCC) was given the green light to purchase the assets of Internet entertainment firm Scour, Inc. Tuesday by a Los Angeles bankruptcy court. The high-profile Scour -- which operated a controversial multimedia file-sharing and searching network -- was placed...

Possibly indicating a consumer cooldown in the e-tail arena, online spending during the week following the Thanksgiving holiday topped out at about US$1.3 billion -- representing just a 50 percent increase over last year's figures for the same period -- according to a new study released Monday b...

According to a study released Monday by business services firm Ernst & Young, Canadian consumers plan to spend 14 percent of their holiday shopping funds online -- a 100 percent increase over last year's level but still less than half as much as their American counterparts. Despite the lag, res...

Online pharmacy Drugstore.com continues to narrowly outpace niche competitor PlanetRX.com and retains the No. 1 spot among Internet health retailers, according to new rankings released by Forrester Research. Although researchers surveyed a number of e-tailers in the category, they concluded that th...

Amazon.com has inked a content agreement with venerable product-testing organization Consumers Union -- the publisher of Consumer Reports and Consumer Reports Online -- that will allow the Internet giant to publish "unbiased" product advice summaries, merchandise information and ratings on its s...

Just one day after women's online network Oxygen Media said it was paring down its workforce and consolidating operations, niche competitor Women.com announced that it is laying off 25 percent of its workforce in a bid to trim expenses and achieve profitability. As part of what the company called...

The civil rights group that filed a discrimination lawsuit against online delivery service Kozmo.com earlier this year announced Tuesday that it will not pursue the suit as part of a agreement brokered by the parties to increase Internet access in underserved communities in Washington, D.C. The Equ...

Music and video retailer Tower Records has scored the latest victory for brick-and-click stores on the Net, edging out Internet heavyweight Amazon.com as the top online music seller in Forrester Research rankings released Tuesday. Forrester said that the first-place showing by Tower -- which has ai...