Archive

The European Commission on Wednesday began official antitrust proceedings against Google, alleging abuses of its dominance in Internet search. The EC further opened a probe into Google's Android mobile operating system. In a Statement of Objections sent to Google, the EC notes that its preliminary i...

American Airlines this week withdrew its flight content from Orbitz Worldwide's websites, which include Orbitz.com, ebookers.com and CheapTickets.com. The companies are locked in a booking fee dispute. The issue is also a brewing source of discontent between the airlines and Orbitz's competitors, su...

The inventors of Apple's Siri personal assistant have launched an independent effort that could make their first offspring look kind of dumb. Billed as "the global brain," Viv aims to radically simplify the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything. "They are trying to abstract Siri'...

Pegasystems has rolled out Next-Best-Action Marketing 7.1. Built on Pega 7, it aims to provide marketing executives with the best customer service strategy -- the next best action -- for any given scenario, based on customer data captured by the system, along with rules configured by the user. The d...

Google reportedly is close to settling the antitrust case the European Commission brought against it more than three years ago. This is its third offer to the EC so far, and it reportedly includes commitments from Google on how it will treat rivals and how it will use content from other providers. "...

The Federal Communications Commission last week voted to reconsider the ban on mobile phone calls during airplane flights, unleashing a collective cry of angst from travelers not wishing to be forced to listen to the tedious conversations of neighboring passengers. Coupled with the Federal Aviation ...

Two well-known restaurant delivery services -- GrubHub and Seamless -- announced plans to merge on Monday. The services enable users to search local restaurants that deliver by ZIP code and food specialty. Combined, the companies' footprint will cover 500 cities and connect users to more than 20,000...

In an effort to boost adoption of Google Wallet, Google this week added features to the service that allow users to send money as a Gmail attachment. The company is also trying to simplify the mobile payment process for consumers and businesses. As a way to market the new features, Google Wallet pay...

Google is the subject of another antitrust complaint in Europe, this time filed by FairSearch, a coalition of companies that allege the search giant is using its Android operating system to unfairly promote its own apps and data. One of the well-known FairSearch members is Microsoft, no stranger to ...

Samsung opened up its new Wallet app at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Wednesday, joining Apple and Google in the market for electronic storage and scanning of tickets, memberships and discounts via smartphones. The company's announcement comes two days after it said it had entered a worldwi...

Here's a likely familiar summer scenario for many Americans: You've been driving all day, and it's getting late. You're tired. You're ready for a hotel bed in an unknown town coming up ahead. My modus operandi has always been to watch for billboards advertising upcoming motels with rates. Or, I mig...

IBM is building out its digital marketing functionality in its Smarter Commerce portfolio with the acquisition of Tealeaf Technology, a provider of customer experience analytics. Tealeaf software records and analyzes customer interactions on a company's website and any mobile channels it offers. It ...

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...

In Australia, a federal court ruled Tuesday that Google was guilty of breaching trade laws by hosting misleading advertisements. At issue: advertisers generating the appearance of their own ads by using the names of competitors as keywords. The court ruled that this was likely to mislead those searc...

Travelers searching for flights can now look to Google. The search engine giant released its Google Flights feature Tuesday. Flights and travel packages were previously one of the few queries Google couldn't answer as quickly or thoroughly as its travel search competitors such as Kayak, Expedia, Orb...