DOJ Probes Net Music
The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated an antitrust investigation into Internet music, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment. The investigation reportedly concerns Pressplay, owned by Sony and Vivendi Universal; and MusicNet, owned by AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, EMI Group and RealNetworks.
Global Cooling
Theglobe.com, a community site that was among the highest flyers during the dot-com boom, says it will lay off 60 staffers — about half its remaining work force — as it shuts down both its community site, www.theglobe.com, and WebJump, a free Web hosting service for small businesses.
Handheld Sales Drop
Just 2.8 million handheld computer were sold in the second quarter of 2001, down 21 percent from the previous quarter, according to a report from Gartner Dataquest. Palm remained the market leader, shipping 898,000 handhelds, but it lost share to competitors. The biggest gainer was Compaq Computer, which sold 450,000 iPaqs, more than double its first quarter unit sales.