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Verizon Wireless plans to charge subscribers a new $2 fee every time they pay their wireless bills online or directly over the phone. A leaked memo from the company first reported by Engadget, showed some of the details of the new plan. And the blog Phone Scoop got confirmation from a Verizon representative on Thursday of the change. The new fee will go into effect starting January 15 and doesn't apply to customers paying their bills with an electronic check or who enroll in autopay using a credit, debit, or AT&T cards, according to the memo posted on Endgadget. Customers...

Online giant Amazon.com Inc. is planning to open two distribution centers in the Richmond area next fall that would employ a total of 1,350 people, state and local officials said Wednesday. The $135 million investment in Chesterfield and Dinwiddie counties is Virginia's largest single economic development deal since 2004 in terms of jobs created. The official announcement by Amazon and Gov. Bob McDonnell is expected this morning.

Link only - Small-business nightmare: 8 million sites hacked to harm customers' computers

We can’t deny it anymore: college is a scam and a bubble (see the reasons why below). But I’m the first to admit it’s going to take years for that bubble to burst. And while college tuitions are still skyrocketing and student-loan debt is creating a generation of indentured servants, we might as well benefit from it Many stocks will continue to go up from the multi-decade college bubble, even as it eventually bursts: The Washington Post Co. , which owns Stanley Kaplan, gets all of its earnings from the education side of its business. Blackboard , which is the...

Californians who buy products online from out-of-state merchants pay virtually none of the tax, according to a new analysis by the staff of the State Board of Equalization. California consumers are paying an average of 1.4% of the total use tax on purchases made from out-of-state retailers that do not collect the taxes for the state, according to the analysis published in the board’s May Economic Perspective newsletter. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot compel companies that have no physical presence inside their borders to collect such taxes. So the board has been on a campaign to...

By 2015, consumers in the U.S. likely will spend nearly $4 billion on daily-deal offers provided by companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial, says a report released Thursday morning. The report, by research firm BIA/Kelsey, offered a three-level estimate for the amount of spending on daily deals. It said $3.9 billion is the “most likely” scenario to play out by 2015. But under the most “optimistic” scenario, it says sales could reach $6 billion, while the firm’s “low-end projection” is $2.1 billion.

The battle over direct shipping of wine from producer to consumer has returned to Congress. Last month, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) introduced legislation pushed by beer and wine wholesalers that could make it nearly impossible for consumers to have wine shipped to their door. Delahunt's bill would effectively overturn a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued five years ago this month in Granholm v. Heald, a case brought by the late Virginia vintner Juanita Swedenburg. The ruling held that states had primary responsibility for regulating the distribution of alcoholic beverages, but that they could not discriminate against out-of-state producers by allowing...

Obama signs bill restricting mail-order cigarette sales WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday signed legislation that bans the U.S. Postal Service from shipping cigarettes — a measure that's expected to cripple the mail-order tobacco businesses run by members of the Seneca Nation of Indians. White House press secretary Robert L. Gibbs announced the signing in a brief statement that included no comment on the new law, which the Senecas fought furiously. In response, Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder Sr. accused the president of betraying the very Indian nations he wooed during his 2008 campaign and spoke to last fall....

By Jerry Zremski NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF WASHINGTON — The Senate late Thursday unanimously passed a bill that could devastate the Seneca Nation's mail-order cigarette business, voting to ban the U.S. Postal Service from mailing tobacco products. The Senate's sudden and bipartisan passage of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act thrilled anti-smoking advocates while infuriating the Senecas, who say the bill could threaten as many as 1,000 jobs in Western New York. The Senate passed the bill as part of its routine legislative work at the end of Thursday's session. The House in May passed a slightly different version...

Amazon’s move to drop its Colorado associates so soon after Gov. Ritter signed a new law creating a so-called “Amazon tax” is regrettable – but not shocking. There were plenty of signals that repealing a tax exemption for online retailers would face legal challenges and possibly just such a move as Amazon launched today. The Post editorial board was among critics who warned the new law looked awfully problematic for such little gain . John Hickenlooper missed a golden opportunity in not weighing in on this tax. Score one for McInnis. Suddenly he looks like the prescient one while Denver’s...

Internet sellers who don't report their sales will no longer be under the radar. Starting next year, any bank or other payment settlement company that processes credit cards, debit cards, and electronic payments such as PayPal will have to issue information returns telling the IRS what merchants receive. The new returns are Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments. Purpose of Reporting The IRS believes that many online sellers fail to report their transactions. Some don't report because they mistakenly believe that Internet sales are invisible. Others do so because they are trying to evade taxes. The IRS has found...

DENVER – Amazon.com Inc. cut ties Monday with Colorado online businesses that help it sell products because of a new state law aimed at getting out-of-state, online retailers to collect sales tax. The move hurts businesses — many of them small, home-based operations — that earn money by using their Web sites and blogs to link customers to online retailers. Colorado has at least 4,200 such businesses, known as affiliates or associates, accounting for about 5,000 jobs, and most of them rely on Amazon to some degree, according to their trade group, the Performance Marketing Association. The group's executive director,...

Legislation requiring online retailers to collect Virginia's 4.5 percent sales tax -- the so-called "Amazon Bill" -- easily cleared the Virginia Senate this morning and is headed to the House of Delegates, where opponents hope it falls prey to that chamber's hostility to taxes. Senate Bill 660, by Republican Emmett W. Hanger Jr. of Augusta, was approved, 28-12. The measure is a priority among traditional, bricks-and-mortar retailers, who say they can't compete with online businesses that currently don't have to collect the tax on Virginia sales. Foes say the legislation is a jobs-killer; that it would force Internet businesses here...

...To see how much these items cost, shoppers must add the merchandise to their shopping carts — in effect, taking it up to the virtual register for a price check... In many cases that freedom stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS. The ruling gave manufacturers considerably more leeway to dictate retail prices, once considered a violation of antitrust law, and it set a high legal hurdle for retailers to prove that this is bad for consumers. ...retailers say manufacturers have become increasingly aggressive with one tool in particular: forbidding...

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that New York City couldn't use federal racketeering laws to sue out-of-state Internet tobacco retailers that don't file reports on city residents who buy cigarettes online. The city wants the reports so it can collect cigarette taxes directly from residents who purchased tobacco products online. The retailers aren't required to collect the taxes. The case before the high court centered on New York's allegations that New Mexico-based online retailer Hemi Group committed racketeering offenses of mail and wire fraud by allegedly failing to submit reports on its New York City customers to state tobacco administrators....

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As one of his first moves upon becoming CEO, eBay chief John Donahoe unveiled a slew of changes to the online marketplace, kicking off an uproar among sellers and sparking boycotts. Two years later, eBay is finally starting to see signs of success on its turnaround plan. The San Jose, Calif., e-commerce giant on Wednesday reported 2009 sales of $8.7 billion, up from $8.5 billion in 2008. That's a 14% increase from the $7.7 billion in revenue eBay had in 2007, the year before Donahoe's overhaul. EBay's profits, though, haven't kept pace with its sales growth....

New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.

As the media landscape continues to skew to online from print, more news outlets may feel financial pressure to test just how much readers care about professional credentials. Looking into the media furor over swine flu last spring, I interviewed a UCLA epidemiologist, who told me it was best to assume "a posture of humility" in trying to assess how deadly the H1N1 virus would be. "This is a virus we haven't seen before," said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley. "We don't really know what will happen." I've thought often in recent months about those words, which just as easily might be...

Wal-Mart starts selling caskets, urns online By EMILY FREDRIX, AP Retail Writer Wed Oct 28, 4:03 pm ET MILWAUKEE – The world's largest retailer wants to keep its customers even after they die. Wal-Mart has started selling caskets on its Web site at prices that undercut many funeral homes, long the major seller of caskets. The move follows a similar one by discount rival Costco, which also sells caskets on its site. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., quietly put up about 15 caskets and dozens of urns on its Web site last week. Prices range from $999 for models like...

Online spending down as holiday season nears Recession puts brakes on fast-paced growth of e-commerce By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 24, 2009 Online retail's runaway growth has hit a wall as consumers have cut back on the discretionary spending that drives the industry's sales. According to research firm comScore, e-commerce sales have been steadily declining this year, with spending not including travel dropping 2 percent in the third quarter. That has set the stage for a tough holiday season, which can account for as much as half of annual sales. "It's not pretty at all...

Time Inc. is gathering U.S. magazine publishers to start a jointly run digital newsstand next year that would deliver their titles to mobile devices like increasingly popular electronic book readers. ---------------- snippity snip ------------------------

The Boston Globe will soon begin charging for its Web site, publisher P. Steven Ainsley told the paper’s union bosses yesterday as the Globe’s parent New York Times [NYT] Co. confirmed in a regulatory filing that the money-losing Hub broadsheet is for sale. News of the Globe’s intention to charge for Boston.com came a day after News Corp. [NWS] Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced his company would start charging for content at all of its news Web sites, including the New York Post, The Times of London and The Sun, a popular British tabloid. News Corp. already charges for some access...

Media giant News Corporation Ltd intends to charge for all its news websites in a bid to lift revenues, as the transition towards online media permanently changes the advertising landscape. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch told analysts in a conference call after News Corp released its full year results that the traditional newspaper business model has to change. "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution," Mr Murdoch said. "But it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites," he said. He said News Corp would use the Wall...

MURDOCH: 'WE PLAN TO CHARGE FOR ALL OF OUR NEWS SITES'... 'WE WILL START CHARGING FOR FOXNEWS.COM'... Q. WILL YOU SHUT DOWN ANY OF YOUR NEWSPAPERS?' A. 'ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE... BUT NO PLANS FOR IT' FOXNEWS PROFIT 50% HIGHER THAN LAST YEAR... VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR NEW JAMES CAMERON FILM...

States across the U.S. have been taking a harder line against an old problem -- cigarette smuggling -- as part of the widening search for solutions to their budget problems. States including Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia this year have stepped up law-enforcement efforts with the aim of recouping taxes lost to bootleg cigarette sales. Studies indicate states are losing about $5 billion annually in tax revenue because of illegal tobacco sales, said Phil Awe, who heads the tobacco-diversion division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "We do not want to have our...

"We all know that The New York Times and other papers have been thinking hard about finding ways to charge readers for the news on their web sites, and there’s evidence that the decision-making process is moving along. Bloomberg has reported that a survey of print subscribers included this sentence: The New York Times website, nytimes.com, is considering charging a monthly fee of $5.00 to access its content, including all its articles, blogs and multimedia. It also asked about a $2.50-a-month “discounted fee” for print subscribers....."

The New York Times has sent a survey to its print subscribers asking them how much they would pay for access to its website. From Bloomberg New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free. Times Co. is contemplating...

The New York Times is testing a price point of $5 a month for access to nytimes.com, with a 50 percent discount for print subscribers. The Times e-mailed a survey to print subscribers Thursday afternoon inviting their reaction to that pricing plan and asking a range of questions about online pricing. NYT survey A portion of the Times' survey on charging for access to its Web site. (Click image for larger version.) New York Times Co. spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed in a telephone interview that the Times had sent the survey, but said no timetable has been set for a...

The visit last month was particularly significant as it was his first trip since the New York Times and IHT websites were merged to a single global product. The tie-up in March served as a precursor to a key decision in August on how best to charge for access to the group's websites, reversing an earlier decision not to, and becoming the first major non-financial newspaper group to take the step. The move comes as the advertising downturn proves particularly challenging for the listed group, which has seen its market value fall 65pc to $707m (£438m) in the past year....

It has been a bad week for gun owners in Tennessee, but the taxpayers lucked out when a proposal to tax online purchases when the retailer advertised through an instate company, website or blogger, stalled. Check to see if your state is considering an eTax.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-read-the-wsj-for-free-online-2009-6Check out the link______________________Other than the Denver Post, which got all the Rocky Mountain News subscribers when that paper shuttered, The Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper in the top 25 to add to its circulation this year.And though this turn of events probably has as much to do with subscription discounting as anything, everyone likes to say the Journal is adding subscribers at least in part because it's erected a paywall online. We've even come out and said the troubled New York Times should follow the Journal's lead.But all solutions have their problems, and it'd be unfair...

Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future. "Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves. There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps,...

Home furnishing giant Ikea has launched legal proceedings over the rights to the domain name iloveikea.se, a site which currently specializes in selling used Ikea furniture. The site, which is modeled after the popular Swedish buy-and-sell site blocket.se, has been operating for about a month. Ikea has now asked the Internet Infrastructure Foundation (Stiftelsen för internetinfrastruktur), the body responsible for registering domain names ending in ‘.se’, to help resolve the dispute over iloveikea.se, claiming the site infringes on the Ikea brand. “It’s obvious that a visitor to a homepage with the description iloveikea as the impression that it is the...

News Corp plans to introduce micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal's website this year in a milestone in the news industry's race to find better online business models. "A sophisticated micropayments service" will launch this autumn, Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Journal, told the Financial Times. The move will position the Journal as the first big newspaper title to adopt a model many are studying cautiously as they seek to reduce dependence on plunging advertising revenues. It comes as John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator leading congressional hearings on...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As US newspapers shrivel up and die, an unlikely figure is emerging as their potential savior: News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. The much-villified Australian-born media tycoon is preparing to battle against the practice many hold largely responsible for newspapers' current plight -- the "original sin" of giving away their content for free online. The 78-year-old Murdoch announced this week that the days of free are over. He said he planned to begin charging readers of the websites of News Corp. newspapers "within the next 12 months," testing the scheme "first on some of our stronger ones. "We...

Many states are looking for ways to increase their tax revenue by taxing purchases made online. This extends to third party solicitors located in another state. Our Constitution infers that states are restricted from enacting laws that burden or restrict interstate commerce. Let’s stop this tax now.

If you're planning a major purchase via the Internet, you might want to do it quickly. Congress is expected to introduce a bill this week that would require Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, Cabela's and other online merchants to collect sales tax on all online purchases and return that money to the state in which the purchaser resides. Online Sales Tax?Tony Avelar, AP12 photos Congress will soon introduce a bill requiring sales tax on all online purchases. To read the latest on credit card changes, click through our gallery.(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker) I was recently shopping for a TV for...

Leave it to a Massachusetts politician to get taxes completely wrong. U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt is soon expected to reintroduce the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) bill, a federal mandate for collecting local sales taxes on interstate purchases. You buy organic Oreos from Oregon or moose meat from Montana, and Massachusetts sales taxes would track you across the Internet. Supporters argue it’s unfair to make traditional “brick-and-mortar” businesses collect our state’s 5 percent (for the moment) sales tax while a shop next door can sell the same item online tax-free. They’re right. Every business should be treated the same. What’s wrong...

congress and Obama have their eyes on the Internet to help fund more government spending. Congress is expected to introduce a bill this week that would require Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, eBay, Cabela’s and other online merchants to collect sales tax on all online purchases and return that money to the state in which the purchaser resides. The new bill rewrites the ground rules for mail order and Internet sales by eliminating what its supporters view as a “loophole” that, in many cases, allows Americans to shop over the Internet without paying sales taxes. Currently, Americans who shop over the Internet...

Friday, April 17, 2009 Print ShareThisThe free ride may soon be over. For the past decade and a half, most Internet shoppers haven't been forced to pay sales tax while buying goods online. But now, according to CNet News, an alliance of "brick-and-mortar" retailers and state governments has teamed up to end that — and they've crafted federal legislation that may be introduced in Congress as early as next week. Previous attempts in past years to do so have flopped.

If a little-known but influential alliance of state politicians, large retailers, and tax collectors have their way, the days of tax-free Internet shopping may be nearly over. A bill expected to be introduced in the U.S. Congress as early as Monday would rewrite the ground rules for mail order and Internet sales by eliminating what its supporters view as a "loophole" that, in many cases, allows Americans to shop over the Internet without paying sales taxes. Currently, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors aren't always required to pay sales taxes at the time of purchase. Californians buying...

The feds are taxing tobacco yet again. They say this is about getting people to quit, but we all know better. If smokers quit smoking where would the money for all those liberal social experiments come from? Tell DC to puff off, and put out your stinky cigarette, cigar, or pipe. E-cigs, the future of nicotine addicts :) All the nicotine and none of the cancer causing tars and chemicals. Pick your flavor: apple, coffee, Red Bull, etc. "Smoke" anywhere! No ashtrays, no lighters, no stink! I ordered mine two days ago, and I can't WAIT to get it. I'll...

BERLIN--A key piece of Internet technology that banks, e-commerce sites, and financial institutions rely on to keep transactions safe suffers from a serious security vulnerability, an international team of researchers announced on Tuesday. They demonstrated how to forge security certificates used by secure Web sites, a process that would allow a sufficiently sophisticated criminal to fool the built-in verification methods used by all modern Web browsers--without the user being alerted that anything was amiss. The problem is unlikely to affect most Internet users in the near future because taking advantage of the vulnerability requires discovering some techniques that are not...

SEATTLE (AP) -- Amazon.com Inc. said Friday that the 2008 holiday season was the online retailer's "best ever," with more than 6.3 million items ordered and 5.6 million units shipped during its peak day on Dec. 15. Amazon's upbeat take on the holiday season bucked the drumbeat of generally dismal news from retailers. Holiday sales typically account for 30 percent to 50 percent of a retailer's annual total, but rising unemployment, home foreclosures, the stock market decline and other economic worries led many shoppers to slash their shopping budgets this year.

<p>SEATTLE (Nov. 28) - Sears.com was inaccessible to U.S. shoppers for two hours on Friday in what was the most notable Web hiccup of the holiday gift-buying season's official start.</p> <p>Other sites, including Amazon.com Inc., experienced minor slowdowns, according to Shawn White, director of external operations at Keynote Systems Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based research group.</p>

Hello Freepers. It's that time of year again. Let's boost the economy. LET'S GO SHOPPING!!

Consumer spending on e-commerce sites grew just 1 percent during October compared with the same month a year ago, according to ComScore. In fact, last month was the worst growth month for online retail spending since ComScore began keeping track in 2001. Rising prices and unemployment rates, and the psychological impact of the chaos of the financial markets are to blame, according to ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. But the dip in spending can't be too much of a shock to those who watch ComScore's monthly reports carefully. The preceding six months featured declining growth rates--April saw 15 percent growth, and...

Ebay is forcing customers to a payment option of Paypal or credit cards by October 20, 2008. Their email states: Offer an approved electronic payment method by October 20 Make sure you're ready for an uninterrupted holiday selling season: Offer PayPal, a merchant credit card, and/or one of the other approved electronic payment methods by October 20 when checks and money orders will no longer be allowed. Their release states as follows: Faster, more secure checkout experience Paper payments end this October Beginning late October 2008, all items listed on eBay.com must be paid for using one of the following...

Some long-time eBay users are rebelling against policy changes at the on line auction company -- they've gone as far as loosely organizing an international boycott. EBay trading rules have changed recently and many eBay sellers don't like them. They claim the new rules threat the small time sellers who built eBay into a multi-billion dollar company. Around 47,000 people have signed an online pledge to boycott eBay until the company changes its new trading policies. “Our collective belief as eBay users is that eBay wants to get rid of the small time sellers that built eBay, said Ann Smith...