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Microsoft wants the government's help in breaking a vicious monopoly, and the case could set a powerful precedent for electronic commerce You read that first sentence right. Microsoft is reportedly joining a complaint by online travel agents against the nation's airlines, which have cut commissions and are trying to move customers to buy tickets on...

On March 8, Intel announced it has reached a settlement on anti-trust charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission. Before the terms were even public, reports surfaced that Microsoft is discussing a settlement of its problems with the U.S. Department of Justice Settlements in both cases would be welcome. It's much better for business to be done ...

Less than one week after Microsoft made many of its e-commerce plans public, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), the world's No. 2 software company, added some firepower to its e-commerce arsenal On Tuesday, Oracle announced the acquisition of E-Travel, which provides online travel management solutions for corporations.

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE:CPQ) announced on Wednesday the completion of its acquisition of Shopping.com (OTC:IBUY), an online retailer of goods and services. Compaq hopes that its ownership of Shopping.com and the AltaVista Internet portal site will usher in a new era of Internet-based sales for the PC manufacturer, which still lags behind its major competitors in the e-commerce arena. A large portion of Compaq's announcement focused on restoring consumer confidence in Shopping.com's ability to provide adequate customer service to its online shoppers...

E-commerce giants Dell Computer (Nasdaq: DELL) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) are linking their content and online sales strategies, starting with a new co-branded Web site infrastructure announced on Wednesday. The joint venture will be linked from Dell's and Amazon's checkout pages and, will provide consumers with a customizable interface, featuring content and product offerings from the two companies...

Barry Diller was the headline maker at last week's Jupiter Consumer Online conference in New York. The headline was he won't sweeten his deal to acquire Lycos, whose shareholders will take a 30% interest in a new outfit that includes Diller's Home Shopping Channel. Beneath the headline was a lecture in which Diller basically said most of the equit...

Shares of office-products retailer Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS) and leading personal Web-hosting service Geocities (Nasdaq: GCTY) climbed on Monday after the companies announced a deal that would make Staples the exclusive office-supplies merchant on GeoCities Staples closed up 2-7/8 to 31-3/8, and in a great day for the Internet sector, GeoCities added ...

E-commerce hosting service iMALL, Inc. (Nasdaq:IMAL) today announced the acquisition of San Francisco based Pure Payments Inc., which provides a critical component for Internet-based credit card processing. Pure Payments offers the electronic payment "gateway" which has been used in iMALL's integrated e-commerce solution, to interface between e-commerce sites and banks, for credit card transaction settlement...

Netscape Communications (Nasdaq: NSCP) announced on Tuesday that it will integrate comprehensive support for XML across its portfolio of e-commerce applications. According to the company, support for the XML language is a key ingredient to Netscape's e-commerce strategy. Netscape's implementation of XML will support e-commerce transactions, business processes and catalog exchanges between companies...

"When the man dances, certainly boys what else. The piper pays him." So concludes the musical introduction to Prof. Harold Hill, "The Music Man" of the 1958 Meredith Wilson musical, a role made famous by the late great Robert Preston The Web has lots of Music Men. Steve Case is, of course, the best among them. Not only does he get stores to pay ren...

Shares of 7th Street.com (Nasdaq: SEVL) soared more than 80 percent on Friday after the multimedia training company announced a deal with America Online, and the stock is rocketing today, as well 7th Street.com, which sells downloadable tutorials for well-known programs on its Tutorials.com Web site, will become an anchor tenant in AOL's Computing ...

The Go2Net (Nasdaq:GNET) network of Web sites and Wireless Dimension recently unveiled a co-branded site, where Go2Net Network users can compare and buy wireless phones and service. The relationship provides a boost for Wireless Dimension, which will gain visibility among Go2Net's base of more than one million users per day Internet users can enter...

Onsale Inc. (Nasdaq:ONSL), a popular Internet retailer, today reported that more than ten million bids have been placed on its atAuction service at www.onsale.com. The ten-millionth bid was placed on Sunday, February 21, approximately two months after reaching the nine-million mark "Passing ten million bids illustrates our continued momentum in the...

The world's largest domain-based Web-hosting company is about to get even bigger. Verio (Nasdaq: VRIO), which provides Web-hosting and e-commerce services for small businesses, announced on Thursday that America Online (NYSE: AOL) has chosen it to be the exclusive business Web-hosting partner for AOL and AOL-owned Compuserve Verio will pay at least...

What's the key to becoming a successful Internet reseller? First, learn to go direct Dell's Gigabuys store looks like a winner. Its home page has a product search button and several product menus, without requiring users to scroll down. This means all the goods are within a few clicks. The prices seem competitive, and Dell has already built the bac...

Now it's Hewlett-Packard's turn. One day after Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) launched its online store, and two days after Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) announced its deal with Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP) made its major e-commerce plans public On Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard announced that it has partnered with privately held Ariba to launch Ari...

Bluefly, Inc. (Nasdaq SmallCap: BFLY), an Internet clothing retailer announced today that it has signed a comprehensive marketing agreement with Excite, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, Bluefly's online store will be integrated throughout Excite.com, WebCrawler.com, and the Excite co-branded channels of Netscape's Netcenter sites. The agreement includes a combination of e-commerce, advertising, and promotional programs...

In the midst of legal wrangling with the U.S. Department of Justice and preparations for the much anticipated release of Windows 2000, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) shifted its focus on Thursday to announce a broad e-commerce strategy. At a press briefing held in San Francisco with chairman and CEO Bill Gates, the company outlined a comprehensive strategy to make it easier for businesses and consumers to conduct business over the Internet, using the Microsoft platform. Most notably, Microsoft announced a new e-commerce software protocol known as "BizTalk," which will be integrated into the upcoming Microsoft operating system and Office suite...

My 11 year-old daughter played in a YMCA basketball tournament last weekend, and was shocked to learn that when she held the ball for more than five seconds, without passing it, the referee would give it to the other team. It turns out that's a good rule for Internet advertising as well....

Beyond.com's quest to build a well-recognized brand name got a big boost on Tuesday, when the online software retailer announced it was chosen as Compaq's online partner for software and services The strategic agreement between Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND), which recently bought privately held competitor BuyDirect, and Compaq (NYSE:CPQ), the world's l...