e-commerce

Honesty is the best policy--unless you're dealing with someone you can't trust.

The sad fact is, you can't trust anyone on the Web. Just ask the millions of people who signed up for Sony's PlayStation Network and who now must protect against possible hack attacks on their bank accounts and other private data lost due the recent data breach. CNET News reporter Erica Ogg explains the company's response to its customers in her Circuit Breaker blog.

Sony claims the credit card information was encrypted and did not include the cards' security codes; the company also … Read more

Daily deals site Groupon owes a chunk of its fast growth to new customers brought in by its unavoidable ads all over the Web and on Facebook--but it doesn't want them appearing on the Web site of "The Apprentice," the reality show hosted by real estate mogul Donald Trump, a political firebrand of late.

In a blog post Thursday, the freewheeling Groupon took a rare serious tone as it explained its decision to ask advertising partner NBC, which airs "The Apprentice," to ensure that its ads not be displayed on the show's site. "… Read more

Amazon's earnings report for the first quarter of 2011 wasn't pretty, even considering that Wall Street was expecting tepid performance.

Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.61 per share--and Amazon posted $0.44. Net sales were up 38 percent year-over-year to $9.86 billion, but it's the earnings per share that really counts.

That's a sign that spending--for example, on projects like the Cloud Drive media storage service, its own Android app store, the cheaper ad-supported Kindle that was announced earlier this month, and the e-reader's new "library lending" feature--may have been higher … Read more

eBay, which has been on quite the mobile start-up acquisition spree of late, made it public today that it has acquired Where, a company that makes location-based mobile applications and operates a network of local ads and deals.

More specifically, Boston-based Where has been purchased by eBay's PayPal division, which plans to make the start-up a part of its suite of services for local businesses while keeping the Where consumer app intact.

"Local commerce companies like Where are blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping," noted a PayPal blog post by senior director of global communications … Read more

A group of security researchers say they have found ways to trick online cashier systems into ordering items for free or at a discount.

Researchers from Indiana University and Microsoft Research found security holes in a software development kit from payment hosting provider Amazon Payments, Rui Wang, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, told CNET in a recent interview. Amazon fixed the problems after being notified by the researchers, and integration bugs found in merchant shopping-cart applications and implementations on several retail sites have also been fixed.

The software they examined contained "logic flaws that can be exploited … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--There will be quite the land grab ahead as mobile trends continue to make their way into the e-commerce world. Or at least that's what it seems based on two short talks at this week's Web 2.0 Expo about the future of commerce, one yesterday afternoon from Google vice president of payments Osama Bedier, and one this morning from eBay vice president of global product management Dane Glasgow.

"Shoppers don't distinguish between online and mobile. They think of mobile as an extension of their everyday activities," Glasgow said. "Mobile's clearly having … Read more

eBay announced today it will acquire GSI Commerce, an e-commerce marketing services company, for $29.25 a share--which will likely come out to around $2.4 billion.

To put things into perspective, that's more than it paid for PayPal and only slightly less than it paid for Skype (which is has now sold off). The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter.

"We intend to lead the next generation of commerce innovation. The acquisition of GSI, which offers the most comprehensive integrated suite of online commerce and interactive marketing services available, will significantly strengthen our ability … Read more

It was only a matter of time: American Express has taken a full-out dive into the crowded and ambiguous space full of companies both big and small that are trying to figure out the future of consumer payment transactions. The company today announced Serve, a set of applications designed to let users make payments more easily online or with mobile phones via special accounts funded by credit cards, debit cards, or bank accounts. With this product, the company "aims to expand into new segments of the market that do not rely on traditional charge and credit cards to manage … Read more

It turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer. It wants a $25 billion initial public offering. It more or less created a breed of advertising that now every company wants into. It's grown faster than just about any company, ever. But according to multiple signals across the Web, things may be afoul at Groupon.

The latest is a chart released by Yipit, a start-up that aggregates cities' daily-deal offerings--more than 400 sites' worth--into a customizable digest that highlights individual users' preferences. Yipit said in a blog post today that it found a 32 percent decline in Groupon revenue per … Read more