Geico-Google Case Dismissal Denied

John Battelle reports that the judge in the Geico-Google case denied Google's motion to dismiss the suit for lack of merit. Such motions are standard practice and often not expected to be granted. Geico sued Google in an effort to... continue reading »

Net Ads Lead Media Growth Again

Ad spending is up, especially on the web, according to a New York Times report on CMR data for 2004's first nine months. Ad spending rose 10.3 percent overall, and 25.8 percent online. Traditional media was boosted by Olympics and... continue reading »

Black Friday Up 11 Percent on Web

Internet Retailer reports that Nielsen/NetRatings found an 11 percent rise in online shopping on this year's Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Of that holiday frenzy, eBay saw the most activity, with traffic twice that of nearest rival Amazon.com. Wal-Mart... continue reading »

Big 3 Differ on Strategy for Video Search

SearchEngineLowdown provided a much-needed summary for a CNET piece on the big three search players' efforts to include video in their long-term search strategies. The upshot: Google will use closed captioning to index all the vocal content in video, making... continue reading »

Mamma Enters to Desktop Search with Copernic Buy

Desktop search and meta search firm Copernic agreed to be purchased by Canadian firm Mamma.com, pending shareholder approval. Terms weren't disclosed. Copernic introduced its Desktop Search (CDS) application in September, putting it in competition with search giant Google, a bevy... continue reading »

Screensaver Lets Users Exact Revenge on Spammers

Lycos Europe launched a free screensaver that deliberately clogs spam servers. The "Make Love Not Spam" screensaver, available in both Mac and PC formats, sends HTTP requests to a list of servers that Lycos Europe said has been hand checked... continue reading »

E-Commerce Sites Slowing Under Load

Keynote Systems reports that bigger than expected demand on e-commerce sites is degrading performance, reducing reliability to 80 percent and increasing transaction times by 50 percent, according to CNET. Online research firms have variously predicted 20 to 30 percent rises... continue reading »

Arbitron Jumps Back into Net Radio Ratings with comScore

ClickZ reports that Arbitron will jump back into online radio ratings, having formed a new partnership with comScore to help collect data. Previously, Arbitron had developed its own network of client-side user monitors that measured streaming audio use, but the... continue reading »

Online Sales Up 9 Percent in November's 2nd Week

comScore reports that online retail spending grew only nine percent for the week ending November 14, according to Internet Retailer. It also found that online travel spending rose only about eight percent. ShopperTrak reports that general retail sales were flat... continue reading »

Anti-Adware Advocate Criticizes Claria User Agreement

MediaPost points to an anti-adware advocate's report surmising that Claria's user terms indicate that using some popular anti-spyware tools could be a breach of the agreement. Claria's licensing agreement states that users agree not to remove its software except by... continue reading »

Report: Google Looking for Agency

SearchEngineLowdown pointed out that rumors are afoot that Google is seeking an agency relationship. To date the firm has relied on word of mouth for marketing its search products to consumers. It has handled trade campaigns - geared to media... continue reading »

Thanksgiving Outsells 'Black Friday'

Hitwise reports that the biggest shopping day to date online was Thanksgiving itself, rather than the following "Black Friday." For the first time, retail site visits exceeded 10 percent of all web traffic, and they did so for the three... continue reading »