Online Advertising

It pays to advertise, right? Not necessarily, as Oracle found out when it tangled with IBM recently over advertisements in which Oracle claimed its servers were faster and much less expensive than IBM hardware. Unlike Oracle's headline-grabbing Java copyright and patent infringement suit against Goo...

Social network MySpace settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Tuesday over charges related to how the site was using members' personal information. The social network had access to personal data from users, including their full names, ages and genders. MySpace promised users it would not sha...

Yelp reported a net loss in its first quarter as a publicly traded company after aggressive expansion abroad led to a sharp increase in costs. The site, which provides online reviews of local businesses, released its earnings on Wednesday for its first ever fiscal quarter after filing its IPO. Yelp ...

Interest in the United States Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe into Google was given a jolt with the commission's decision to enlist seasoned white-collar crime litigator Beth Wilkinson to head the investigation. "When we have the opportunity to augment our team by bringing on a lawyer wit...

Facebook is rolling out its Facebook Offers service, a way for users to get discounts and promotions from local businesses via the social networking site. The offers will be distributed through users' Facebook news feeds. Users can then sign up to receive the offers via email and redeem them at pa...

It appears that Yahoo and shareholder Third Point are digging in for a contentious proxy fight. The companies have been tussling over who will fill four seats on the board of directors, with the two sides clashing on several points, including whether Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb should get one of th...

Yahoo filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook on Monday, ensnaring the social network heavyweight in a legal entanglement weeks before it's scheduled to go public. The suit regards 10 patents related to instant messaging, advertising systems, privacy settings and methods for customizing...

Facebook is rolling out yet another feature to keep members engaged with the site for as long as possible. Called "Interest Lists," Facebook touts it as a way for users to create their own personalized newspapers with special sections -- or feeds -- on topics that matter the most to them. There will...

Pandora reported a 62 percent increase year-over-year in active users for its fiscal fourth-quarter, which ended Jan. 31, along with a 74 percent increase in advertising revenue and a 99 percent rise in listening hours. However, those gains were accompanied by increases in royalty payments the onlin...

Yelp had an excellent first day as a publicly traded company. It opened on the New York Stock Exchange Friday at $22.01 per unit -- up 47 percent from its IPO price of $15. By the end of the day, shares were trading at $24.58. The first-hour pop was surprising, even for enthusiastic advocates of the...