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New York's expansive new online sales-tax requirements are drawing mixed responses from major e-tailers that haven't previously collected such fees in the Empire State.

Despite a pending lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality, Amazon.com has said on its Web site that it still plans to abide by the law and add sales tax to orders shipped to New York when the mandate kicks in June 1.

But online outlet store Overstock.com wants nothing to do with collecting the new tax, according to reports at the Affiliate Tip blog and The New York Times.

A few weeks ago, New York's governor signed a new law that requires any company that pays New York-based entities for "directly or indirectly referring customers" to its retail business to collect sales taxes from New York-based customers. It's an attempt to get around a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Quill v. North Dakota case that says retailers aren't required to collect sales taxes from customers who live in states where the businesses don't have a physical presence.

New York's new law directly implicate Amazon, Overstock, and other companies that operate "affiliate" programs, which, in the e-tailers' cases, means they offer commissions to external Web site owners who link to their products and prompt sales. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of such affiliates, although in its court complaint against New York state, the company said it wasn't sure exactly how many were truly located in New York.

Overstock, for its part, is opting to cut off its 3,400 affiliates in New York, telling the Times that it couldn't afford to deal with collecting sales taxes in the state, although it, like Amazon, believes the new policy is unconstitutional. An e-mail from Overstock's affiliate program manager republished by the blog Affiliate Tip characterized the situation as "temporary."

Discount online retailer Overstock.com announced on Thursday that it will be selling its products outside the United States for the first time.

"We're actually right smack dab in the middle of integrating," Jake Bailey, Overstock's director of international sales, said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday. No final date has been given for the launch of international sales, but Bailey said it will be before the end of 2008.

The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company has inked a deal with E4X, which runs a service called FiftyOne Global Ecommerce. The partnership has enabled Overstock to start billing and shipping to a total of 34 new countries--Canada, as well as 33 European nations. FiftyOne lets a participating retailer ship to a U.S. address and receive U.S. currency, while the buyer pays in his or her home currency.

Not all of Overstock's products will be able to be shipped overseas. Some bulky products, like massive HDTVs and large pieces of furniture, will continue to be available only in the States. But, Bailey said, "for the most part, it's going to be the bulk of our product offering."

One of the best ways for an Internet-based company to enter the social media world is through the creation of a Facebook.com application.

A successful app will drive traffic to the company's native site, create direct sales, and promote online reputation.

So what exactly is meant by a Facebook app? Well, it could be a simple as the Vampires application that allows members to "bite" one another and become "vampires." This application is fun, simple, and has gone viral (in the sense that it has become very popular). The application is monetized by way of advertising horror movies in the application's interface. And because Facebook is all about sharing, all of one's friends can see one's Vampiric status via the same interface.

But complaints regarding privacy are starting to surface in regard to such apps.

Facebook applications can be based solely on direct sales. Companies like Overstock.com allow--or should I say encourage--Facebook users to purchase from its Web site through its application, without ever leaving Facebook.com.

The problem is that people's purchase information is being shared. After making a purchase, the Overstock.com app displays a small box in a corner of the browser interface following a transaction. This box alerts people that information will be shared with other Facebook users unless they click on it to negate the sharing. The box fades away after a half minute or so, after which consent is assumed, and all your friends can see what you bought.

I'm no lawyer, but that sounds kind of "iffy" to me. And even if it is a legally binding procedure, it certainly isn't going to do much for customer satisfaction!

There are, evidently, other large e-commerce sites with similar or identical interfaces, and my instinct is that Facebook and these large companies will solve the problem quickly. It makes a good example, however, of social media gone awry. The term "social" does not automatically imply that sharing is the default; part of being social is having the choice to share or not share.

Purchasing items, especially during the holidays, often involves gifts, and the surprise of a well-chosen gift to a friend (who may well be in your Facebook world) is as social as it gets.