Online Retailers Off to Good Start
While some retailers are anxious this holiday shopping season, the online giant Yahoo! says sales volume rose 75 percent from last year in the just-completed holiday weekend.
It says the most sought-after items were electronic games, digital cameras and computers as well as Barbie, Lego and Harry Potter toys.
Meanwhile, Kmart's Bluelight.com saw sales up 45 percent for Thursday through Sunday, compared to the year-ago holiday weekend, said spokesman Dave Karraker. Traffic was unchanged, suggesting that more browsers were being converted into buyers.
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Amazon led the traffic on Friday, attracting 1.7 million users, registering a 33 percent increase from the previous week.
Wal-Mart saw a 132 percent increase to 355,011 shoppers, followed by Target.com, which attracted 312,000 shoppers, or a 152 percent gain. Kmart's Bluelight.com saw 227,000 shoppers, a 227 percent increase, and Sears drew 220,000 visitors, up 73 percent. J.C. Penney Co. Inc., grew to 217,000 visitors, an increase of 86 percent.
The big test for online retailers will be in the next two weeks, which represents the bulk of online holiday sales.
Microsoft Gives Little Details about Futuristic Home
Microsoft Corp. on Monday elaborated on its vision for the home of the future.
The PC, powered by Microsoft's operating system, will deliver personalized entertainment, unified communications and control to consumers, according to the software giant's eHome Division.
Though such PC-centric visions have been touted in the past, the new Windows XP operating system will make such dreams a reality, said Mike Toutonghi, vice president of the eHome division.
No product details or timelines were announced during Monday's presentation at Microsoft's Mountain View campus.
AOL Reaches 32 million Subscribers
Internet service provider America Online, which has been adding broadband capabilities to its product offerings, said on Monday it now has 32 million subscribers.
The addition of 1 million new subscribers for the world's largest online company over the past 2 1/2 months comes despite a $1.95 price increase for U.S. subscribers to AOL's unlimited dialup access, which now costs $23.90 per month.
AOL, a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc., is now the most expensive nationwide U.S. dialup provider, said Dylan Brooks, a analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix in Colorado.
It also took AOL 2 1/2 months to jump from 30 million to 31 million subscribers.
Trailing AOL is Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Internet Access, with 7 million customers. No. 3 EarthLink counts 4.8 million paying customers. United Online Inc., an ISP created in the merger of free providers Juno and NetZero, counts 6.1 million active subscribers, but only 1.25 million who pay for the service.
Playboy.com Falls Prey to Hackers
Playboy.com has been the victim of a malicious hack attack and has warned customers that this may have resulted in the exposure of their credit card details.
Playboy.com has said that, although the scope of the attack has yet to be determined, law enforcement officials are investigating the security breach.
The attack became apparent after several registered users received an e-mail from a person claiming to be the hacker which displayed their confidential credit card details. According to Reuters, the e-mail also listed a number of warnings for online customers and companies including, "Do not trust companies with your details online."
Freeserve Looking to Take UK Government to Court
Freeserve has threatened to take a tax dispute with the U.K. government to the European Commission unless Customs and Excise closes a tax loophole that benefits its overseas competitors.
England's largest ISP has also threatened to move its headquarters overseas.
Freeserve, which is owned by Wanadoo of France, must pay VAT on its services. Its complaint is that its biggest rival, AOL Time Warner, is at a competitive advantage because am ISP based outside the European Union does not have to pay VAT. Freeserve is calling for a level playing field among ISPs for tax purposes.
The Times reports that Freeserve issued its threat in a letter to Customs and Excise Minister Paul Boateng. The company has also complained that its letters to E-commerce Minister Douglas Alexander received no reply.
Microsoft Pledges Computers to Small Schools to Settle Case
Microsoft has settled over 100 class action lawsuits that were brought by individuals who claimed that the company abused its market dominance to overcharge for its products.
Instead of each consumer taking a small sum in compensation--which would likely have been consumed by legal fees--the company has pledged to provide software and computers to the poorest schools in the United States, an offer valued at around $1 billion over a five year period.
Microsoft is to file the settlement agreement for approval by a U.S. court. If its terms are implemented, the company will assist around 12,500 schools and nearly 7 million children in the United States with a mixture of software, training and subsidized hardware.
Companies Battle for Business in Saudi Arabia
The New York Times reported on Monday that almost a dozen software companies are vying for a contract with Saudi Arabia to block Web sites the government finds inappropriate for its citizens. Most of the companies competing for the multimillion filtering deal are American.
Most of the sites blocked to Saudi Arabia, which is identified by Reporters Without Borders as one of the countries with the most centralized Internet control, are pornographic or contain sensitive political or religious material. Almost all of the country's Internet traffic is funneled through a control center and has been since Internet use began nearly three years ago in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia originally used Secure Computing's SmartFilter to block objectionable
Web sites its service included already-established categories to capture questionable sites, including gambling sites, and prevent the public's access to them. Secure Computing's agreement with Saudi Arabia is up a little more than a year.