E-Commerce Blog

In 1999 at a Sony Music corporate meeting, the room was filled with Sony executives and attorneys from across the globe. At one point, one of the Sony attorneys gave a presentation on two music services. One was the Sony music service and the other was a tiny, fledgling service. The Sony service required users to go through multiple layers of Web sites in order to get to the songs they wanted. Then the Sony attorney demonstrated the other service. She typed in “Hey Jude.” Not only did the the Beatles version appear, but so did other versions. And — it was free.

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‘We Didn’t Want to See the Future’: Q&A With Ex-Sony Lawyer Steve Gordon

In 1999 at a Sony Music corporate meeting, the room was filled with Sony executives and attorneys from across the globe. At one point, one of the Sony attorneys gave a presentation on two music services. One was the Sony music service and the other was a tiny, fledgling service. The Sony service required users to go through multiple layers of Web sites in order to get to the songs they wanted. Then the Sony attorney demonstrated the other service. She typed in “Hey Jude.” Not only did the the Beatles version appear, but so did other versions. And — it was free.

The rest is here:
‘We Didn’t Want to See the Future’: Q&A With Ex-Sony Lawyer Steve Gordon

Like their counterparts at the malls, online merchants finally got some relief with the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, spurred by a bevy of deals and free shipping offers. But the stronger-than-expected bump in online sales Monday couldn’t cancel out a lackluster November. Internet research company comScore said Wednesday that online sales spiked 15 percent to $846 million on “Cyber Monday,” which was named by the National Retail Federation in 2005 to describe the surge in online spending when customers returned to work after Thanksgiving and shopped from their desks.

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Cyber Monday Shoppers Provide Surprise Sales Boost

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

Free broadband for America has inched closer to reality: The plan, after two years of debate, is finally on the calendar for a full vote by the Federal Communications Commission. Assuming the plan is approved at the FCC’s Dec. 18 meeting, one of the agency’s last before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, free broadband could become reality within a year. First proposed in 2006, the plan calls for a chunk of airwaves called “AWS-3″ — now idle — to be used for wireless broadband across the USA.

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FCC to Say Yay or Nay to Free Nationwide Broadband