This week's In the News examines increases in consumer spending and vendor presence on the Internet this holiday season. The ten resources discussed provide retail industry news for November through December 1998, background information on electronic commerce, and examples of the cybershopping experience. Even in the face of political and stock market volatility, analysts expect strong retail...

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy is a three-part, six-hour documentary series and Web site. Providing a comprehensive history of the ideas, events, and values that have shaped the present global economy, the Commanding Heights Web site examines the history of the global economy and demonstrates how key economic theories have evolved in the context of historical events. The...

This new 292-page report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is geared toward policy makers and others in developing countries to help them understand the trends and features of the "network economy." UNCTAD hopes the report will help developing nations take advantage of e-commerce. In his preface to the report, Kofi Annan explains that, "As a contribution to our...

This new special section from the NYT (free registration required) explores the world of online commerce. The fifteen features stories cover topics such as e-mail and spam, MP3 and the music industry, online scams, teens and online shopping, online advertising, starting an e-business, and online college courses, among others. Other content includes the favorite sites of "online industry leaders,"...

The online counterpart to the newly launched eCompany Magazine, eCompany Now strives "to be the straight-talking, sophisticated companion to business people who face the risks and opportunities the Web brings to the business world." Along with articles lifted from the print publication, eCompany Now has created several value-added features, including Web Files, which are online resources that...

The failure rate of small businesses continues to remain quite high, so those individuals wishing to start such an enterprise may wish to consult some of these free online courses. Offered as a service by the Small Business Administration (SBA), these courses come from a variety of organizations, including Kutztown University and the South-West Texas Small Business Development Corporation. Most of...

In conjunction with the US Federal Trade Commission's Public Workshop on Consumer Information Privacy held June 10-13, 1997, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has released this short report, based on its review of "100 of the most frequently visited web sites on the Internet." The report discusses the collection of personal information, privacy policies, and browser cookie use at...

According to Isaac Newton, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This seems to be the case with the dramatic rise and subsequent fall of Internet companies. A quick check of the Dotcom Failures Website shows dozens of brand-name ecommerce businesses dealing with layoffs, lawsuits, and plummeting stock prices. E-businesses from furniture.com to Salon online magazine have...

This focused Weblog is devoted to "chronicling free to fee and beyond," a neat stop for those of us who have been monitoring the changes in the Web as services struggle to stay afloat when their grant money or venture capital has been used up. The front page to the site gives a week's worth of dated entries (this week including information on Salon.com, Consumer Reports, Listbot, Napster, and...