E-Commerce Blog

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has challenged the constitutionality of a federal law providing immunity to telecom companies that allegedly shared information about U.S. citizens with security agencies. In a hearing in San Francisco on Tuesday, the advocacy group argued before Judge Vaughn R. Walker that it is unconstitutional to prevent American citizens from suing telecoms, such as AT&T, that allegedly helped the National Security Agency spy on them. “It’s a complicated issue, so it could take the judge several months to make a decision,” said EFF spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke.

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Judge Mulls Constitutionality of Telecom Immunity Law

German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies said Wednesday that a write-down on its stake in Qimonda and lower chip prices on the global market combined to widen its fourth-quarter loss, the seventh in a row. Infineon said it lost $968.8 million in the fourth quarter that ended Sept. 30 compared with a $354.5 million loss a year earlier. The company’s quarterly sales, though, managed to rise 2 percent to nearly $1.5 billion compared with $1.4 billion a year ago. Investors reacted bitterly, pushing Infineon shares down 25 percent in Frankfurt trading to $1.57.

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Infineon Q4 Losses Near $1B on Chip Market, Qimonda Woes

Yahoo is plugging its Internet radio service into CBS’s webcasting network in a move driven by dramatically higher fees for airing music online. Yahoo’s retreat from operating a standalone service, announced Wednesday, makes it the second major Web site this year to flee the rising royalty rates by hitching its radio service to CBS. AOL Radio, owned by Time Warner, hooked up with CBS in June. Yahoo’s radio channel, called “Launchcast,” will combine with CBS beginning in February.

Source:
Ballooning Royalty Rates Chase Yahoo Radio Into the Arms of CBS

The old adage about a sucker being born every minute is no less true among respondents to spam. Dishonest people have always been trying to make a fast buck by duping others into confidence scams, and the Web has give those people an easy way to communicate with more potential marks. However, modern-day scam artists may be capable of making a faster buck from a lot fewer suckers. A recent study on spamming operations showed that spammers only need a response from one sucker out of every 12.5 million e-mails sent, usually by way of botnets and malware-infected computers.

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Suckers for Spam: When Will They Ever Learn?

We can all read the news. Credit is frozen, or nearly so, and the federal government is laboring mightily to get credit flowing again. Unfortunately, here in the U.S. as well as in other places, like the UK, banks have become averse to doing business. The news reports I read say that after being too lax, many banks are being too strict in their lending policies and are sitting on the cash that governments have given them to lend. What can CRM do here?

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The Microcredit Opportunity