Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Drummond referred to the move as a "hostile bid," which is a premature characterization. Yahoo's board hasn't yet rejected the bid, meaning this move could easily become friendly. But there's little question that a merger of Yahoo and Microsoft would shake up the world of Google, which has enjoyed Microsoft's inability to move MSN beyond a weak third-place position. Read more...

The traffic watchers at Keynote Systems this weekend saw the problems throughout the region, a key area for supply chain partners of global retailers. Read more...

Wal-Mart is pursuing a “globally scaleable” system that would essentially act as a kit of online parts–with elements such as data mining and customer analysis–that could be readily deployed in different markets, according to this report in the Financial Times.

The globalization effort is hardly new for Wal-Mart. In the UK, Wal-Mart’s Asda unit delivers groceries, general goods and financial services. In Mexico, the re-tailer’s 63 upmarket Superama neighbourhood stores also offer an online delivery service that includes groceries. But the retailer is now recruiting software architects and engineers at its San Francisco web headquarters to make a concerted effort, the FT reported.…

The trial with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) commuters started Tuesday and is expected to continue for four months, said Mohammad Khan, the CEO of Vivotech, which is one of the technology vendors involved in the trial. Sprint is also a key partner in the project. Read more...

Yes, it's never a good idea to ignore E-mails from FTC attorneys. But these folk had some excellent points, most of which amounted to an agreement that the enforcement was lethargic but that Congress is to blame. Read more...

In what some eBay sellers have dubbed “eBay math,” a series of rate changes are being seen as rate hikes, according to this Forbes.com story.

“Under the old rules, for example, selling a purse at auction for $25 would have cost the seller $1.91, including 60 cents for listing the item plus eBay’s commission of $1.31,” the Forbes story said. “Under the new structure, the seller would pay $2.74, including 55 cents to list the item plus a higher commission of $2.19.”…

The laws governing direct interstate shipments from wine retailers to consumers are “confusing, arcane, inconsistent, often ignored and rarely discussed,” according to this wonderful New York Times story about Wine.com’s undercover operation to protest such laws.

“In what amounted to its own sting operation, Wine.com last summer ordered wine from several retail merchants and asked them to ship it to states where such shipments are illegal,” the story reported. “Upon receiving the wine, Wine.com then sent letters to state regulators turning in the transgressors.”…

EBay’s PayPal confirmed Monday that it is paying $169 million in cash to buy an Israeli online risk tool vendor.

The companies said that “key personnel” from Fraud Sciences Ltd.—including Yossi Barak, Fraud Sciences’ COO, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf—will join eBay while “Gadi Maier, Fraud Sciences’ President and CEO, will provide strategic and operational support to the company during the integration period.”…

The new interim CEO, Bruce Johnson, came up through the KMart side of the business and he had gone to KMart from French retail empire Carrefour, where he had been director, organization and systems and a member of the management board. Before that, he spent 16 years at Colgate-Palmolive and had worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton and Arthur Andersen & Company.Read more...

But Visa helped those numbers look stronger by removing from the list some 38 level 1 retailers that weren't going to make their PCI deadlines and extending their deadlines to Sept. 30, 2008.

There are only 364 Level 1 retailers, which are merchants that process more than 6 million Visa transactions a year. Visa did the same thing for the 1,011 Level 2 retailers, only there it excluded 302 merchants, who were given until Dec. 31, 2008.Read more...

But there is a huge IT frustration with those mobile devices when it comes to retail employees. It's not the fact that most new retail tech capabilities are mobile and experimental, which just begs the data breach Gods to punish managers. That's less frustrating than infuriating. Read more...

The panel included Google's head of retail, John McAteer, Borders' E-Commerce chief, Kevin Ertell, the corporate development VP at Bill Me Later, Mark Lavelle, Ursula Milan, an E-Commerce manager at the Museum of Modern Art, and the dean of the E-Commerce analytics corp, Jupiter Research's Patti Freeman Evans. Read more...

When Oracle got BEA this week to agree to an $8.5 billion buyout–significantly lower than what BEA had been insisting on–is it further evidence of rough economic waters ahead?

Oracle’s ability to negotiate a $19.38 share price (BEA had been insisting on $21/share) is the work of both investor Carl Icahn and “increasing fears that a slowing U.S. economy could damp global spending by businesses on technology, adding to the financial pressures on small vendors trying to remain independent,” according to this thought-and-fear-provoking Wall Street Journal story.…

Office Depot CIO Tim Toews isn't sure exactly where that line must be drawn, but he's confident it's moving more toward the data-sharing side, provided the consumer sees immediate, real and actionable incentives. Read more...

The USPTO has issued a patent—to be effective Jan. 29—for a method for "real-time calculations of shipping costs for items purchased online using a zip code as a destination location indicator." Read more...

Although the initial retailer for this trial wasn't identified, the company has been talking with Best Buy, the Gap, Nordstrom and Target. And for a fee ranging from $250K to 450K, they can leverage the trial to compete against online alternatives. Read more...

No, that won't work. As much I try, it's hard to pretty up a retail technology/E-Commerce panel as an exciting outing. But for a tech-biz discussion, we've got two decent offerings. On Wednesday morning (9:45-10:45 AM, at the Javits, Concurrent Hall A 1A21/22), StorefrontBacktalk will be moderating a look at The Road To Merged Channel. Read more...

And among those who actually left the stores, 90 percent of them never returned, according to Scott Drobner, Motorola's director for market intelligence programs. Read more...

But as I was looking at two unrelated privacy legal filings on Friday, was struck by the different legal tactics and the very different probability of success. This all stems from two unrelated privacy breaches from three deep-pocketed companies: $52 billion Sears, $41 billion Sprint and $36 billion Wells Fargo. Read more...

But is the guarantee legitimate if the retailer controls the terms? Read more...

The Sears move came hours after Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Benjamin Edelman published details on how consumers using Sears' ManageMyHome site could find detailed purchase histories about other Sears shoppers merely by typing in their name, phone number and street address into the site. Read more...

One $200 million retail chain—1800mattress.com—is taking a baby step toward merged channel, by sending copies of online chat transcripts to the local brick-and-mortar. "Having the complete transcript of what the customer is looking for onscreen in the store facilitates the sale," EVP Joe Vicens said. Read more...

But the chain is also learning that the online world—with its thousands of bloggers armed with screen captures—is fairly unforgiving when it comes to marketing excesses. Read more...

ComScore on Sunday gave its latest snapshot of E-Commerce sales this holiday season and reported a 19 percent boost compared with the identical period last year. Looking at Nov. 1-Dec. 27, it found nearly $28 billion spent. Read more...