Articles by Keith Regan

Last Friday, employees of Toysmart.com showed up for work as usual only to discover that the Internet startup was shutting down. Though not a complete surprise to some, the news jolted many Toysmart workers Some of them had been lured from thriving brick-and-mortar companies as recently as a year earlier with promises of new challenges and future r...

The raging debate over online music moved to Capitol Hill Wednesday, as several music industry insiders testified before the U.S. House Small Business Committee Wednesday's hearing was classified as an information-gathering endeavor to "examine the new market possibilities for small music labels and entrepreneurs created by the Internet." ...

Monday's news that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants Congress to pass tough new online privacy laws sent shock waves through the e-commerce world that are still reverberating days later Internet companies were already hard at work on their own privacy guidelines and hoped to avoid any moves by the government to shove onerous regulations...

Toysmart.com, the online toy retailer whose backers included the Walt Disney Company, announced Tuesday that it has closed its virtual doors after a long weekend of speculation The Toysmart site, which had posted a notice that it was closed for inventory on Monday, now displays a short thank you letter to its customers. Orders placed through May 19...

A few weeks back, Realtor.com and Homestore.com revealed that they had received requests for information in a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust probe Now, the DOJ is said to be investigating "T2," the mammoth Internet venture being formed by 30 airline companies.

Judging by the impact on stock prices in recent days, it may take a while for investors to come to terms with the merger of U.S. Web portal Lycos and Spanish ISP Terra Networks, SA But time should smooth the bumps and prove that the deal is a smart long-term move for Lycos, which faced the prospect of always being an Internet also-ran in the United...

Online fashion retailer Boo.com, a splashy symbol of 1999's e-commerce explosion, announced Thursday that it will liquidate its assets after recent failed attempts to get more cash from its backers or find new investors or buyers The high-end clothing retailer, which recently described itself as "the first truly international e-commerce site," said...

U.S. President Bill Clinton has made the so-called digital divide a major focus of his last full year in office, crossing the country three times to carry the message that in order for the nation to continue to thrive, everyone -- regardless of background or income -- must have access to the Internet Clinton and the two major candidates who hope to...

Following examples set by the computer, steel, automotive and airline industries, 14 of the world's largest mining companies say they will form an online business-to-business (B2B) exchange to cut procurement costs The companies say they are prepared to invest up to $100 million (US$) in the B2B venture, anticipating that it will dramatically reduc...

Every computer maker great and small seems to have contemplated the same holy grail: To make an inexpensive machine that will connect users to the Internet and allow them to send and receive e-mail. That's it. No complex, breakdown-prone hard drives, no bundled software to choose. Just a machine for getting connected The possibilities seem endless....

Mirroring the efforts of several major North American airlines, British Airways announced Thursday that it will join forces with Air France, Lufthansa and eight other European airlines to launch an online travel agency The group, which includes Alitalia, KLM, Iberia, SAS, Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines Group, British Midland and Finnair, expects the...

On the surface, a red-hot first quarter for venture capital spending appears to be good news for the e-commerce industry. But while venture capital firms pumped a record amount of money into Internet start-up firms during the first three months of 2000, established e-commerce companies picked up a much smaller percentage of the pie than in the recent past...

As businesses worldwide continue to count the damages caused by the costliest e-mail-transmitted computer virus in history, Jupiter Communications released a report on Monday predicting that worldwide direct e-mail marketing will balloon from $164 million (US$) in 1999 to $7.3 billion in 2005 Jupiter (Nasdaq: JPTR) also predicts that the amount of ...

It began as a malicious love letter and ended up as a wake-up call -- another nasty e-mail virus that seemed to prove that a truly safe Internet, if attainable at all, will be realized well in the future For people who are interested in advancing the notion that the Internet is a safe place -- especially for conducting transactions -- the timing co...

Recently, word came out that the owner of Hell.com was putting the domain name up for auction. Asking price: $8 million (US$). While most businesses are not likely to be interested in that particular domain name, the asking price does call into question the entire practice of paying big for domain names in a world where technology can change the landscape overnight...

Visa International announced Wednesday that it will join with wireless data services provider Aether Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: AETH) to create a new Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) standard and to develop new ways for customers to make purchases and receive bills over wireless devices The announcement comes one week after MasterCard disclosed plan...

Just over a week ago, Utility.com landed $30 million (US$) in venture capital from Trident Capital and Idealab! The cash must have been burning a hole in Utility.com's pocket, because a few days later, the Albany, California-based company unloaded a chunk of it by paying the highway tolls for thousands of Boston-area drivers in the midst of a busy ...

Targeting individuals for the first time in its case against the Napster MP3 browser, lawyers for heavy metal band Metallica said Monday that they had identified more than 335,000 individuals who allegedly swapped the band's music on Napster in violation of copyright law A lawyer for Metallica said the individuals' names would be delivered to Napst...

Consumers spent $7 billion (US$) at online retail sites during the first quarter of 2000, including $2 billion on travel, according to a new report from Harris Interactive The numbers put the quarter in line with U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) figures released in March for the fourth quarter of 1999. During those three months, which included the...

Despite Friday's court ruling finding MP3.com liable for copyright infringement, the music industry is going to have to start facing some difficult facts when it comes to the Internet After all, the wave of lawsuits against Napster has generated free publicity worth at least as much as the $1.8 million (US$) the company ponied up last week to fund ...