Articles by Keith Regan

Consumer spending on broadband-delivered online services -- from streaming music and video to voice over Internet protocol phone calling -- more than doubled last year, according to a new report that bears promising news for telecommunications carriers as well as e-commerce companies and their content-provider partners Research firm Point Topic sai...

The trend for industries to consolidate through major mergers and acquisitions has made its way back to the e-commerce space, with No. 2 online brokerage E*Trade Financial reportedly posed to make a surprise US$5.5 billion bid to buy smaller rival Ameritrade Neither company has formally acknowledged the offer has been made and it's not clear whethe...

In a move that extends its strategy to break down the wall between its online kingdom and the rest of the Web, America Online today said it would open up its free blogging service to anyone with an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account The move seeks to leverage AOL's IM platform -- easily its most successful offering to the general Web population --...

Google has released a beta version what is believed to be the first Web accelerator designed specifically for broadband users, a move that quickly met with criticism over privacy and security concerns Other firms have developed similar technology, but it is designed mainly to streamline page downloads and related activities for users of dial-up con...

Spending on Internet advertising in 2005 will grow even faster than previously believed, a market research firm said, although it also predicted a slowdown in growth rates starting next year EMarketer cited the booming first-quarter earnings results for the likes of Google and Yahoo as reason to revise its already robust forecast even higher....

Yahoo, racing to stay ahead of its competitors who are eying the same technological niche and its potentially deep well of advertising dollars, has launched a public version of its video search tool Yahoo Video Search, which had been in beta form since December, was formally launched by the portal yesterday along with a slew of new partnerships tha...

Google has filed a patent application for improvements to its widely used news search and aggregation feature, one that some say will result in a future version of the still-beta product favoring corporate-backed news sites Currently, Google's news search returns results based on how recently a story was posted online and how closely the story appe...

In what some see as a hint of additional fallout to come from the first major enforcement action against spyware being planted through otherwise legitimate Web sites, Ask Jeeves has found it necessary to respond to accusations that its various sites enable downloading of unwanted programs Meanwhile, the office of New York Attorney General Eliot Spi...

Semiconductors sales grew by more than 13 percent in the first quarter, outpacing forecasts thanks to demand for chips installed in smartphones and other portable devices, a trade group said today The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said sales for the first three months were US$55.3 billion, up 13.2 percent from the $48.9 billion in worldw...

One of the first widespread mobile phone viruses has now been spotted in 20 countries worldwide, further proof to some that security issues threaten to stall the adoption of the types of robust wireless handsets and mobile services that will enable a mobile commerce industry to emerge Finland-based security firm F-Secure said the Cabir worm has bee...

Saying some corporate customers don't want it to merge with Qwest Communications, MCI has again agreed to be acquired by Verizon Communications after that firm made a sweetened offer, raising its price to US$26 per share and possibly putting an end to a lengthy bidding war with Qwest over the last major independent long-distance company The new Ver...

A plan by search giant Google to digitize vast stacks of library books in the UK and the United States is drawing the ire of European librarians, who want to launch a project of their own The national libraries of some 19 countries on the European continent have signed onto an alternative plan that would call for the European Union to invest millio...

Seeking to put to rest a chapter from the dot-com heyday when insider access to Internet companies staging IPOs was as good as gold, eBay executives have offered to settle a shareholder lawsuit alleging they benefited personally from investments that should have helped eBay as a whole CEO Meg Whitman, founder and Chairman Pierre Omidyar and former ...

In a move that could send legal shockwaves through the Internet and e-commerce industries, New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed suit accusing a major Web marketing firm of distributing spyware and adware to unsuspecting users Spitzer, who has built a reputation as a fierce watchdog and defender of consumer rights in going after e...

Search engine and portal Yahoo has struck a deal to have a ready-to-use version of its Web tools loaded into Nokia smartphones, securing some key real estate for its expansion into the world of the mobile Internet Under the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, certain Nokia phones will be equipped with Yahoo e-mail, search, news-readi...

Underscoring the rapid maturation of the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) market, two tech and telecom heavyweights moved further into the market today, with Cisco Systems buying a small firm that could help turn its home-networking unit into a VoIP player and Verizon announcing a solution to the enhanced-911 problem nagging the emerging technology...

Bidding to grab market share from both iTunes and Napster, RealNetworks today said it would launch an upgrade of its Rhapsody subscription music service that allows users to listen to songs they download on portable MP3 players The new version of Rhapsody is just the second subscription-style service -- after Napster To Go -- that enables users to ...

Fresh from its latest blockbuster earnings report, Google Inc. has set its sights on expanding its reach in the online advertising realm by going after a potentially massive revenue opportunity -- companies that are more interested in using the Web to create brand awareness than in getting users to click to their Web sites Google said it had begun ...

Less than six months after hanging out a for-sale sign, DoubleClick has agreed to be sold and taken private by a buyout firm that hopes to be able to squeeze more value out of one of the leading online advertising firms San Francisco-based Hellman & Friedman agreed to pay US$8.50 per share, or about $1.1 billion, for New York-based DoubleClick. San...

The Internet is helping to change the face of tax season, with as many as half of all U.S. taxpayers expected to use a free Web service to file their tax returns this year The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that its free E-File program is on pace to grow some 44 percent over last year's record levels. E-File enables professional tax filers or ...