online

Microsoft and Yahoo are both expected to see double-digit increases in search revenue once their partnership system is implemented. Combined, the two companies have a better opportunity to take on Google.

Market leader Google has been the main source for searches and search advertisements for more than a decade. But Microsoft's Bing newcomer has proved it is a strong contender and that should increase with the Microsoft and Yahoo deal.

The battle lines already are forming over TV shows on the Internet. Cable companies, led by giant operator Comcast, are pressing to limit online watching of TV shows only to those who already pay subscriptions to them. TV networks Fox, NBC, and ABC have allied behind Hulu, their own online service that offers advertiser-supported content to all comers for free.

In the week since Microsoft Corp. launched Bing, its new search engine, the software maker's share of U.S. Web searches has crept into double digits for the first time in two years.

But Bing's early gain is no predictor of future success. After all, the last time that happened, Microsoft had resorted to paying people to use Bing's predecessor, known as Live Search.

In the wake of news that Google is introducing behavioral targeting of advertisements, a Democratic congressman from Virginia is renewing his suggestion that new consumer-protection legislation may be needed to rein in data collection.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said he is working with Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), to craft a bill to require online companies to notify consumers of tracking activity. All three congressmen are members of the Internet subcommittee in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which Boucher chairs.

A Recycled Proposal

Shopping online can be a way to find bargains while steering clear of crowds -- and sales taxes.

But those tax breaks are starting to erode. With the U.S. recession pummeling states' budgets, their governments increasingly want to fill the gaps by collecting taxes on Internet sales, which are growing even as the economy shudders.

And that is sparking conflict with companies that do business online only and have enjoyed being able to offer sales-tax free shopping.

An important National Football League game on a recent Saturday night was dark on millions of television screens, but it lighted up an untold number of laptops.

Millions of U.S. fans could not watch the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys on television. Yet they could watch any number of illicit live streams on the Internet.

The major U.S. professional sports leagues are finding that pirated feeds of live games are now common and that they could soon become a menace to their businesses, which are themselves ever more reliant on Internet subscriptions services.

Shares of Microsoft Corp. sank more than 5 percent on Friday, a day after the company missed Wall Street's earnings forecast by a penny, and issued softer-than-expected guidance for the current first quarter.

Microsoft cited weakness in the online business, which makes most of its money from Web advertising.

With a Yahoo Inc. search deal uncertain at best, Microsoft also plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected in the next year to whip its unprofitable online operations into shape.

Fourteen years ago, Jeff Taylor helped set off a tectonic shift in recruitment advertising by founding Monster.com, one of the first online companies to challenge a big profit source of newspapers.

Now, just as papers are reeling from a massive drainage of ad dollars online, Taylor thinks he's found another one of their strongholds that's ripe for online competition: obituaries.

A French commercial court Monday ordered eBay Inc. to pay more than $61 million to a high-end fashion company because counterfeit goods were sold on the auction site.

The fashion company, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, is home to such prestigious brands as Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Fendi, Emilio Pucci and Marc Jacobs, and had complained that it was hurt by the sale of knockoff bags and clothes on eBay.

Everyone has them -- ancient files, boxes of records saved for reasons barely remembered and binders filled with important documents that somehow get stacked at the top of the closet shelf or tucked away in a garage. The list of essential personal and financial items one must keep on hand, and in a safe place, grows with one's fortunes. But there is a way to protect your documents and keep them somewhere safe -- the Internet.