Verisign has alarmed the online security industry with its reluctant disclosure of repeated hack attacks on its network in 2010. The infrastructure company supports key servers of the Internet's backbone, serving as Top Level Domain host for .com, .org and .gov. That it was repeatedly penetrated in 2010 was first quietly disclosed in an SEC filing in October 2011. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/3/12 7:09 PM

It can be a little tricky talking about how and why media outlets allow, and indeed encourage, the diffusion of their content throughout the Web. For starters, people tend to be tightlipped about this strategy. No one from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC or Viacom agreed to speak on the record for this article. They are, apparently, much less eager to discuss sharing content than they are to actually share it. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/3/12 3:00 PM

Salesforce.com unveiled a new customer service help desk tool this week. Desk.com works with customer requests delivered over a social network. It is the byproduct of Salesforce.com's acquisition of Assistly last year. However, it is no mere product integration, said Alex Bard, former Assistly CEO and now vice president and general manager of Desk.com. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/3/12 3:00 PM

Facebook has finally filed for its IPO. The social networking giant submitted an application to the SEC on Wednesday. It plans to raise up to $5 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who cofounded the company in February 2004, currently holds a 28.4 percent stake. Details in the SEC document illuminated the extent of Zuckerberg's control over Facebook. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/3/12 12:36 AM

Facebook filed it's long-awaited S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, announcing its intent to raise $5 billion and begin public trading. The highly anticipated move caused enough of a stir to clog traffic on the SEC's website and provided some insight into the social network's financial situation. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 8:52 PM

Apple has suffered a setback in its multicountry, extremely complex, and seemingly everlasting patent fight with Samsung. In the latest episode, its request to ban Samsung from selling two devices in Germany -- its Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet and its Galaxy Nexus smartphone -- was rejected by the Munich Regional Court. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 7:18 PM

Every day we hear about how AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to grab as much wireless spectrum as they can. We all remember the quality problems AT&T smartphone customers suffered. That same future is in store for every carrier and every customer unless we come up with a solution. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 3:00 PM

As a long-time Mac and iPhone user, I always enjoy seeing new people I work with embrace the Apple way. At the same time, while out and about at work conferences and trips, I consistently see more and more iPads and iPhones. I'm sure some of this is my ability to recognize an Apple product while my ability to spot two different Android-based phones is a little less refined. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 3:00 PM

Every tool has a purpose. That's never more clear than when you see a neophyte do-it-yourselfer trying to use a tool for a purpose other than what it was designed for. For instance, anyone wielding a hammer while trying to fix a car's engine is probably not going to succeed. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 3:00 PM

Superbowl Sunday, the biggest, flashiest U.S. sports event of the year, is also the country's biggest advertising event of the year, carrying some of the cleverest ads on TV. This year, Superbowl Sunday may also mark a watershed in advertising, with advertisers reaching out beyond TV to go into digital media in a big way. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 1:12 AM

AOL delivered a little bit of something for everyone with its Q4 earnings report -- good news, bad news, and hope that its many different initiatives are on track to pay off for the company. First the bad news: AOL reported a profit of US$22.8 million, or 23 cents a share, that was down from the $66.2 million, or 61 cents a share, it earned in the same period a year earlier. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/2/12 12:52 AM

Sony announced on Wednesday that Kazui Hirai is being appointed as its president and CEO, effective April 1. Current Chairman, CEO and President Howard Stringer will become the chairman of the board of directors in June. Sony has had a turbulent year, so a switch in leadership might help the company find a smoother road. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 11:30 PM

Amazon's stock took a pummeling Wednesday after the online retailer released quarterly figures that fell short of Wall Street expectations, which had been built up in part by past years' holiday performances. Amazon's net income was $177 million, or 38 cents per share, a 57 percent percent drop from a year ago. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 8:57 PM

Andreessen Horowitz announced that it has raised US$1.5 billion for a fund aimed at investing in technology startups. The new fund is launching just as one of the firm's well-known bets, Facebook, prepares to go public. Andreessen Horowitz has an unspecified stake in the social network. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 7:57 PM

Fitness instructor and personal trainer Yu Hannah Kim has always believed that fitness should be available to anyone. Now, with the launch of her new site, Yufit, she's making that dream a reality. Yufit offers streaming videos for everything from cardio kickboxing and core burn workouts to yoga and stretching. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 3:00 PM

A week after Apple revealed record-breaking sales numbers that drove its value to new heights, the company's fans were shown a bleaker image of Cupertino in a recently published news series. The iEconomy series paints a picture of harsh working conditions in some overseas facilities that manufacture Apple products. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 3:00 PM

I take briefings from all sorts of vendors every day, from established companies with a new release to emerging companies with what they hope will be The Next Great Idea that the market will seize on. I am always happy to give my opinion and advice, and sometimes it's even taken. But I am usually reticent to write about most of them simply because it's not my job to provide free advertising. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 3:00 PM

Already battered, flailing and in the throes of a corporate shakeup, RIM is now being savaged by critics over an infographic it created to depict the result of a Twitter campaign it launched over New Year's Eve. The infographic depicts four masked cartoon superheroes -- two males and two females. www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 12:44 AM

Google has responded to a letter from members of Congress with its own 13-page missive explaining changes to its privacy policy that will take effect on March 1. Among other things, the letter signed by eight legislators stated that "consumers should have the ability to opt out of data collection when they are not comfortable with a company's term of service." www.ecommercetimes.com | 2/1/12 12:16 AM

A sobering account of conditions at Apple's contract factories in China recently appeared in The New York Times . Essentially, the manufacture of those sleek and sexy devices that consumers love so much has been accompanied by 23 deaths and 273 injuries. In a horrific account of one of the deaths, the Times told of Lai Xiadong, who was severely burned and died of his injuries two days later. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/31/12 9:58 PM

The European Union has begun looking into whether Samsung Electronics has engaged in antitrust behavior. Samsung years ago pledged to license its patents that are essential for the implementation of European mobile telephony standards on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/31/12 9:45 PM

A bit over a year ago, the conventional wisdom related to enterprise IT vendors was fairly straightforward: Sheer size and depth of expertise gave end-to-end systems vendors unlimited access to the high ground. As markets recovered from the 2008 recession, enterprise customers would naturally stick with or gravitate toward large established players that could fulfill their every need. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/31/12 6:53 PM

Zero hour is approaching as the certainty grows that Facebook will be filing for its initial public offering this week. Zero hour for excited investors and Wall Street banks -- and zero hour for privacy advocates. Even as a private company, Facebook had no problem pushing the envelope, said Consumer Watchdog spokesperson Carmen Balber. "Facebook is already treading dangerous waters ... ." www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/31/12 3:00 PM

The sharp growth in the use of smartphones and tablets has spurred the U.S. government to keep pace with the private sector in the use of mobile devices. While federal agencies have been incorporating mobile technology for several years, the rate of adoption could be -- and should be -- far greater, contends Steven VanRoekel, the federal government's chief information officer. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/31/12 3:00 PM

The U.S. Attorney's Office handling the case against Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom and associates has informed the court it's OK to begin deleting the Megaupload data beginning on Feb. 2, according to press reports. The two storage companies that host Megaupload data are free to sweep their servers clean. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/30/12 9:42 PM

This is it -- the week every social media investor has been waiting for. Facebook is expected to file for its IPO this week, according to widely circulating rumors, in response to huge demand in the market -- to say nothing of its own employees, many of whom stand to become millionaires overnight. Morgan Stanley is said to be the leading investment bank in the offering. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/30/12 7:29 PM

How are new data and analysis approaches significantly improving IT operations monitoring and providing stronger security? AccelOp has developed technology that correlates events with relevant data across IT systems, so that operators can gain much better insights faster, and then learn as they go to better predict future problems before they emerge. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/30/12 3:00 PM

Oracle has closed on its $1.5 billion acquisition of RightNow, developer of a cloud-based customer self-service application. Oracle announced the deal in October 2011. For Oracle, the deal makes eminent sense: It fills in a missing gap in its cloud-based CRM functionality and gives it a broader base from which to compete against Salesforce.com. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/30/12 3:00 PM

Your online store did record sales this past holiday and you are a happy person at the start of the year. After a few days of rejoicing, it is time to get back to the grind and look at how you can move forward and take your online store to even greater heights. There are a few fallouts of the holiday season that you will need to manage, and then there are some initiatives that you should plan. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/28/12 3:00 PM

Since the middle of this week, the buzz about Apple hasn't been so much its record earnings as disclosures of the working conditions its overseas workers endure, as detailed in a recent report, which touched on worker deaths, inhumane working conditions, disregard for workers' health, the use of underage workers, and suggestions that Cupertino cares only about cutting costs and maintaining product quality. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/28/12 1:18 AM

Facebook and Washington state filed federal lawsuits on Thursday against Adscend Media for "clickjacking," a form of spamming that fools users into visiting advertising sites and divulging personal information. "Likejacking" is similar. Users believe links to spam sites are being sent to them by friends. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/28/12 1:10 AM

Intel is buying about 190 patents, 170 patent applications, and next-generation video codec software from RealNetworks. The terms of the sale will allow RealNetworks to retain certain rights to continue using the patents in current and future products. In addition to the sale, RealNetworks and Intel signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the development of the video codec software and related products. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/27/12 7:16 PM

As far as exclusive interviews go, you could do a lot worse than getting Herman Cain, and a lot worse than getting him on Nov. 28. That was, after all, the day that a woman unleashed accusations of a 13-year affair with Cain, the third racy allegation levied against Cain in a matter of weeks. And those charges were but part of the Cain saga. There was also the Nov. 15 Libya gaffe... www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/27/12 3:00 PM

Apple surprised Wall Street Wednesday when it revealed it was sitting on cash reserves of nearly $100 billion. Now the question is, what will the company do with it? Apple's successful product lines, which include the iPhone and iPad, have been gushing bucks for months. That's allowed it to build a sizable war chest. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/27/12 3:00 PM

At the National Retail Federation's annual convention,Retail's BIG Show 2012, Epicor debuted its latest mobile offering: the Epicor Retail Clienteling application. It is an add-on for Epicor's existing CRM app, said Dave Burton, product director of CRM services -- meaning a retailer has to be an Epicor customer to use it. However, the app comes with a few additional features designed for the tablet form factor. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/27/12 3:00 PM

Netflix shares rose sharply after the company reported that it added 610,000 customers and that profit margins in the streaming business this quarter could widen to 11 percent. That said, there was plenty in the earnings report to worry investors and analysts -- the company's profit fell 14 percent from the same period last year and its DVD business lost nearly 3 million subscribers. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/27/12 12:52 AM

Motorola Mobility has filed yet another lawsuit accusing Apple of infringing several of its patents for wireless antennae, software, data filtering and messaging technologies. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida this week, follows a similar lawsuit Motorola filed in another Florida court, alleging the same patent violations. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 10:49 PM

The chickens came home to roost on Thursday when AT&T took a $4 billion charge for the failure of its attempt to acquire T-Mobile. While AT&T's $32.5 billion in revenue beat estimates, and while the company reported 7.6 million iPhone activations -- thanks to the iPhone 4S -- it nevertheless suffered a fourth-quarter net loss of $6.68 billion, or $1.12 per share. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 9:38 PM

Both privacy advocates and representatives of businesses that handle consumer data are flocking to Brussels. Why? The EU has proposed a strict set of new data privacy rules that would restrict companies such as Facebook even more than they currently do. Facebook, et al., have descended on the city in the hope of softening some of the restrictions, while privacy advocates are there to keep the EU on its intended path. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 8:19 PM

The way the concept of CRM is defined during the sales process can sow the seeds of its ultimate failure. Because the decision makers are often sales managers rather than actual salespeople, the pitch is usually made that CRM makes it easier for the managers to manage their sales staff. Which is true. But what's in it for the sales staff? www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 3:00 PM

We've been hearing a lot about the cloud, but what is it exactly? Going forward, I will be writing about different companies and ideas and the cloud, but here I'll focus on this new area and how it will transform every company in every industry over the next several years. We are starting to see companies like Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble enter this cloud-space. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 3:00 PM

With sales of the iPad 2 and the Amazon Kindle Fire breaking records over the holiday season, it might appear that the tablet market is becoming dominated by two devices, with the iPad at the high end and the Kindle Fire at the low end. Consider this: Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook is languishing, and HP's late TouchPad is dead. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/26/12 12:32 AM

Brand graph company 33Across has acquired Tynt, a company that tracks user behavior for publishers. Both companies were mum about the amount of the all-stock deal. Tynt will take 33Across into a new market; the combined companies will reach 1.25 billion users globally, according to 33Across. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/25/12 10:24 PM

Few expected Apple to slouch through the 2011 holiday season, but the numbers the company released Tuesday went well beyond the performance most Wall Street watchers had expected, reporting record sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs in Apple's first fiscal quarter of 2012. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/25/12 9:05 PM

When Paul Glover founded Ithaca Hours, a local currency in Ithaca, N.Y., more than 20 years ago, he didn't intend to start a movement. He just wanted to give people in the town a way to invest in their community and each other, even when they didn't have enough traditional dollars to do so. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/25/12 3:00 PM

My Aussie friends have an interesting saying that seems part compliment and part benediction: "Good on you." They pronounce it with an accent on the second word so that the phrase becomes a single word in the mouth, more like "goo-don you." At any rate, good on you. www.ecommercetimes.com | 1/25/12 3:00 PM