Ecommerce Times

Until recently, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- covering a myriad of activities related to hacking and intellectual property theft -- was just one of many questionable federal laws on the books. Then came the case of Lori Drew. Drew was widely vilified for provoking a young girl into committing suicide, but there was a certain uneasiness in many legal quarters about prosecuting her under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It appeared that the law was being stretched beyond its original intent to meet the needs of the prosecutors in the case.

Stumped for a Christmas present? Target suggests giving that iPhone a shake. A new Target-branded downloadable application for the Apple handset lets users search for gifts in the Minneapolis-based retailer's database. Select a gender and age and then agitate the iPhone to activate its internal accelerometer. Presto -- the "Target" app provides a gift tip, via a nifty snow-globe effect. Target is among a stampede of corporations, celebrities and other prominent entities lending their names to iPhone apps, which typically also work on Apple's iPod touch.

With each passing year, hackers come up with new ideas, or variations of past ideas, to combine technology and social engineering to deceive users and attack networks for their financial benefit. The mid-2000s saw the proliferation of botnet attacks used for spam, targeted attacks and worse, while 2007 and 2008 have seen the rise of SQL injection attacks and other Web site exploits as hackers increasingly focus on social networking sites to target millions of users. What's on the threat horizon in 2009?

Part of President-elect Barack Obama's plan to stimulate the economy through a massive public works program will touch upon the technology sector, which has seen its share of woes in recent months. Through the proposed economic stimulus package, Obama hopes to expand access to broadband Internet, make government buildings more energy-efficient, improve IT systems at healthcare facilities and upgrade computers in schools. The proposal comes at a time when many companies in technology are struggling.

British residents are finding that access has been restricted to a Wikipedia page about "Virgin Killer," an album by the 1970s German rock group Scorpions. Several British Internet service providers have limited access to the page because it displays an image of the album's cover, which depicts a nude, prepubescent girl. The ISPs took action in response to a complaint lodged with the UK watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation, which found that the album cover graphic was "a potentially illegal indecent image" of an underage child.

How did Seattle become the home for technology companies that want to help you buy or sell ... a home? Sure, it's where Microsoft and Amazon are based, and it's a well-educated, tech-savvy community, and the University of Washington churns out more than its share of software engineers. But why real estate? "Several years ago, there was a surprisingly large gap as far as meaningful real estate Web sites that focus on the consumer," Amy Bohutinsky, vice president of communications for real estate data company Zillow.com, told the E-Commerce Times.

Salesforce.com has announced its latest platform-to-platform integration -- this time with Google. Force.com for Google App Engine is a new set of tools and services that allows developers to build Web applications on App Engine that leverage the enterprise data that resides in Salesforce.com. "We believe developers should be able to choose the best services from a variety of applications and build applications that span multiple platforms," Ariel Kelman, senior director of platform product marketing for Salesforce.com, told CRM Buyer.

Apple might be unfairly blocking rival software makers who want to sell music for its iPhone, according to some rivals and a technology rights group. The iTunes store accounts for four out of five songs sold on the Internet in the United States and is becoming more important as CDs fade. A milestone was reached last month when Atlantic Records announced digital sales had surpassed CD sales. Everyone agrees Apple achieved its dominance in music downloads and players with good products and marketing, which makes it entirely legal.

As enterprises scale up of their use of service oriented architecture (SOA), proper governance is providing an insurance effect. By deploying governance alongside and in sync with SOA development and deployment capabilities, enterprises are growing the use of SOA without stumbling -- allowing companies to "crawl, walk and run" to SOA without losing control. SOA governance heightens the business benefits of services, increases IT efficiency returns, and reduces the risk that complexity could undermine the services lifecycle in large organizations.

After the tech bubble burst, E*Trade's technology chief, Lee Thompson, needed to find a way to do more with less. In 2001 and 2002, the online stock trading company shrank its tech budget by one-third. "We had to go through and figure out every penny that we were spending and make alternatives to reduce those costs," says Thompson, vice-president and chief technologist of E*Trade. So he began using software that can be downloaded at no cost via the Internet. By the end of 2002, he was saving $13 million a year thanks to use of these freely available applications known as open source software.

As a gay man, Eric McKinley felt disenfranchised by online dating service eHarmony's policy of matching only heterosexual couples. Founded in 2000 by an evangelical Christian psychologist who says he's counseled thousands of couples, every one of them straight, eHarmony is famous for its 400-question application, which seeks to pair like-minded singles for marriage -- and to weed out the ones who aren't ready to walk that path. Though originally targeted at Christians, eHarmony now places more emphasis on values than on faith.

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.

After surging 7 percent Tuesday on rumors that a former AOL executive wants to acquire Yahoo for as much as $30 billion, the beleaguered Internet portal's shares were down nearly 5 percent at $11.02 per share in mid-day trading on Wednesday but closed flat as the market rallied. Jonathan Miller, former chairman and CEO of AOL, is trying to raise as much as $30 billion to buy Yahoo at about $22 per share, according to reports that first surfaced Tuesday. That's significantly lower than the $33 per share, or $47 billion buyout offer that Microsoft made last February.

Research In Motion has lowered its Q3 forecast in response to the weakening U.S. economy. The company, which produces the iconic BlackBerry handsets, now expects adjusted earnings per share to fall between 81 cents and 83 cents for the quarter. Its initial forecast called for earnings per share to range from 89 cents to 97 cents. Third-quarter revenue is now expected to register between $2.75 billion and $2.78 billion, down from earlier forecasts of $2.95 billion to $3.10 billion. RIM also signed up fewer new customers than expected, based on its predictions earlier this year.

U.S. shipments of personal computers are expected to drop nearly 3 percent next year, while demand in much of the rest of the world will slow down quickly as the financial crisis spreads, research firm IDC said Wednesday. IDC, which said last month it expects global technology spending to slow significantly next year, now forecasts worldwide 2009 PC shipment growth of 3.8 percent, with the value of those shipments falling by 5.3 percent. This is down considerably from IDC's earlier projection of a 13.7 percent growth in units shipped and 4.5 percent increase in PC revenue.

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.

Telecom Italia will cut an additional 4,000 jobs by 2011 as it concentrates on core growth markets in Italy and Brazil to confront the deteriorating economic situation, CEO Franco Bernabe said Wednesday. The 4,000 job cuts are in addition to 5,000 announced in June, and will reduce Telecom Italia's workforce by 14 percent from 64,000 to 55,000. Bernabe said the number of managers will be cut in half as the company seeks to simplify its organization.

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.

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.

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.