E-commerce

Yelp is unhappy with Google running its users' reviews, but says its former suitor is unwilling to negotiate compensation.

The search giant is unfairly benefiting by running Yelp's local business reviews on the Google Places page without any compensation, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told the Telegraph newspaper. But Stoppelman says Google is offering only a take-it-or-leave-it response.

"We are unhappy with the way Google uses our users' review on its Places page," Stoppelman said. "However, there is no solution to the problem...Google's position is that we can take ourselves out of its search index … Read more

Apple is defending its effort to trademark the phrase "App Store" against a Microsoft challenge, arguing the term is no more generic than the software giant's trademarked "Windows."

Apple applied for the trademark in 2008, prompting a challenge by Microsoft, which contended the phrase is too generic to register and would restrict competitors' ability to describe their own services. In a filing (PDF) yesterday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple asked that the challenge be dismissed and pointed out that one of Microsoft's most prominent trademarks has also been challenged as … Read more

When astrophysicist Geoff Rhoads wanted to protect his photographs of planets from online theft in the mid-1990s, he developed watermarking technology that would help him keep track of the images he posted to the Internet. The antipiracy technology formed the basis for his company Digimarc.

Sixteen years and approximately 600 patents later (and another 400 patents pending), Digimarc hasn't exactly helped movie studios and record labels put digital pirates out of business yet, but it's on the verge of providing some interesting applications to smartphone users. And it could help print media companies tap into some much-needed but … Read more

AT&T has launched a new service that will send customers texts promoting special deals whenever they're near certain stores.

Teaming up with mobile marketer Placecast to deliver the new ShopAlerts service, AT&T says it's the first mobile provider to offer a location-based marketing program designed for mobile consumers.

AT&T subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco who sign up for ShopAlerts will get text messages describing special offers, rewards, coupons, and other promotions at nearby participating stores. AT&T said that so far it's signed up Hewlett … Read more

Alibaba.com, the largest e-commerce site in China, announced today that two senior executives had resigned after an internal investigation found a rise in fraudulent activity on the site.

Chief Executive Officer David Wei and Chief Operating Officer Elvis Lee Shi-Huei were not involved in the rise in fraud but were taking responsibility for the "systemic breakdown" in the company's "culture of integrity," Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma said in a statement (PDF).

More than 2,300 fraudulent storefronts registered on the site in 2009 and 2010 as "Gold Suppliers," offering inexpensive electronics for … Read more

PayPal was hit by an outage early this morning that prevented customers from using the online payment service for more than an hour.

The outage started at 12:11 am PT, according to PayPal's Developer Network. PayPal said it was resolved by 1:23 a.m. PT, though the company acknowledged that access to international PayPal sites, such as ones in the U.K. and Spain, may have been slow or intermittent until 2 a.m. PT

The outage prevented customers from logging into their PayPal accounts. But the company said it didn't affect the ability of merchants … Read more

Few companies have changed the e-commerce world in the recent past as much as Groupon, a local-deals broker that has gotten the nation hooked on half-price massages, discounted restaurant bills, and packages offering rock-climbing and yoga combos (though, ideally, not at the same time). It's earned rave reviews for customer service, thanks in part to its hiring of underemployed comedians as copywriters and service reps.

Yet Groupon has taken a beating in the past few weeks--not in terms of traffic, and not from the rise of any of its several dozen smaller competitors--but just because of a few bonehead … Read more

For a company with more than $2.3 billion in annual earnings and $9.1 billion in revenue, it has been shockingly fashionable to write off eBay. The common refrain: eBay is losing marketplace share. It's so Web 1.0. And eBay can't hang with Amazon.

However, eBay has quietly been turning around a few analysts on Wall Street and its powwow Wednesday won a few over. Simply put, eBay has some heady goals between now and 2013. Here's the bottom line outlook:

How will eBay get to that revenue goal? PayPal will carry the company.

Read … Read more

U.S. online retail spending reached a record-breaking $43.4 billion in the fourth quarter, fueled by strong holiday spending, Comscore reports.

Spending in the fourth quarter was up 11 percent over a year ago, representing the fifth consecutive quarter of positive annual growth and the second quarter of double-digit growth rates in the past year.

In 2010, holiday spending online was bolstered by the first-ever billion-dollar day on record, and others surpassing $900 million. The strong growth rates are a huge swing from two years ago, when fourth-quarter sales fell by 3 percent.

The bulk of online sales occur … Read more