Matthew Hicks

Search rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have settled disputes over a search-engine advertising patent and a services agreement ahead of Googles high-profile initial public offering. The two companies announced on Monday that they reached a settlement agreement in a patent-infringement lawsuit brought by Yahoos Overture Services Inc. division in April 2001 against Google. They […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—A joint venture backed by a century-old directory publisher is adapting one of the newest forms of online advertising to the industrial-products market. ThomasB2B.com LLC on Monday will announce the beta launch of its paid-search service that targets sponsored listings to the business-to-business market, company president Dan Savage said during an interview this […]

The Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software ASA have released updates to their Web browsers to fix a series of security vulnerabilities. Mozilla on Wednesday posted new versions of its Firefox browser, Thunderbird e-mail client and Mozilla suite that provide fixes to three issues. They include a newly reported critical vulnerability affecting multiple vendors software that […]

MSN has launched a beta version of a Web-based instant messaging client in five markets, including the United States. MSN Web Messenger went live on Wednesday, providing users of Microsoft Corp.s MSN Messenger consumer IM service with the type of remote IM access that has been available to users of competing services for years. Both […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Yahoo, which had faced criticism for the way its anti-spyware toolbar scans for software, has decided to alter the toolbar so it treats adware the same as other nefarious software. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company on Wednesday took the beta tag off the Yahoo Toolbar with Anti-Spy and changed its default scanning settings to […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Expect Microsoft Corp. to launch its own desktop search product by the end of the year as it more aggressively enters the search market, a company executive said here Wednesday. Christopher Payne, vice president of MSN Search, told attendees at the Search Engine Strategies conference that desktop search is one of Microsofts top […]

Startup X1 Technologies updated its desktop search application Tuesday with support for more complex queries and broader indexing of file attachments. X1 Technologies Inc., of Pasadena, Calif., first launched its X1 Search application in February as a way for users to quickly find e-mails, attachments, contacts and desktop files. It is competing in a space […]

To expand its local search options, Ask Jeeves Inc. on Tuesday partnered with Citysearch for access to its local business listings. Ask Jeeves over the course of the next month plans to add Citysearch information to its search results, said Jim Lanzone, the companys senior vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves. Along with […]

A Korean Internet company is buying Lycos Inc. and its network of Web sites for $105 million. Terra Networks SA said on Monday that is it selling the U.S.–based portal operator to Daum Communications Corp., based in Seoul, South Korea, following a competitive process led by investment bank Lehman Brothers Inc. As previously reported, Terra […]

With its announcement Monday of an upgrade to its voice platform, Edify is laying out a new architecture for enterprises deploying speech applications. The Santa Clara, Calif., company said it plans to unbundle the core voice application server and voice browser from its Voice Interaction Platform when Version 9.0 is released in September. The move […]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Watch out spammers. Academic researchers are raring for battle. On Friday, the inaugural Conference on E-mail and Anti-Spam opened here at Microsoft Corps campus with a decidedly different approach to fighting unwanted e-mail. Rather than touting products, speakers vetted research from universities and industry laboratories. Their approaches moved far beyond the Bayesian filtering […]

America Online Inc. is set to release an update to its Netscape Web browser in August, but it wont be coming out on Aug. 3 as has been widely speculated. The Netscape Store Web site, which sells CD copies of the browser suite, had listed Aug. 3 as a ship date for the browser. News […]