The 6-1 ruling represented the first time a court had invalidated an Internet sales tax law among 18 states that have them. It brought an immediate cry from traditional, store-based retailers for Congress to step into regulating taxes on web sales.
The court determined that Illinois' 2011 "Main Street Fairness Act" was superseded by the federal law, which prohibits imposing a tax on "electronic commerce" and obligates collection that's not required of transactions by other means, such as print or television.
Illinois' law required out-of-state retailers to collect state taxes on annual sales of more than $10,000 that involve in-state "affiliates," or website operators and bloggers, that draw consumers to the retailers' sites in exchange for a cut of each sale.
Top 5 Construction Companies To Watch For 2015: eBay Inc.(EBAY)
eBay Inc. provides online platforms, services, and tools to help individuals and merchants in online and mobile commerce and payments in the United States and internationally. Its Marketplaces segment operates ecommerce platform eBay.com; vertical shopping sites, such as StubHub, Fashion, Motors, and Half.com; and classifieds Websites, including Den Bl�Avis, BilBasen, Gumtree, Kijiji, LoQUo, Marktplaats.nl, mobile.de, Alamaula, Rent.com, eBay Anuncios, eBay Kleinanzeigen, and eBay Annunci, as well as provides advertising services. The company?s Payments segment offers payment and settlement services for consumers and merchants on and off eBay Websites and other merchant Websites. This segment operates PayPal, which enables individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online and through mobile devices; Bill Me Later that enables the United States merchants to offer, the United States consumers to obtain, credit at the point of sale for ecommerce and mobile tra nsactions; Zong, which allows users with mobile phones to purchase digital goods and have the transactions charged to their phone bill; and BillSAFE that enables customers pay for purchases upon receipt of an invoice. Its GSI segment offers an ecommerce services suite for enterprise clients that operate in general merchandise categories, including apparel, sporting goods, toys and baby, health and beauty, and home; and marketing services comprising full-service digital agency, enterprise email marketing, mobile advertising, affiliate marketing, advertisement retargeting, and in-depth analytics services. The company also offers X.commerce platform that provides software developers access to the company?s applications programming interfaces to develop functionality for various merchants; and Magento Connect, which allows developers to market and sell add-on functionality and solutions to merchants that use a Magento storefront. eBay Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquarter ed in San Jose, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jonas Elmerraji]
Online auction site eBay (EBAY) is no slouch in the cash category – the firm's net cash stands at more than $2.3 billion. Add investments into that number, and eBay's wherewithal jumps to $8.4 billion. That's a substantial cash cushion, even for a $65 billion firm like eBay. It's enough to cancel out 13% of the firm's outstanding shares, for example, or enough to bring the firm's lofty price-to-earnings ratio down to a more manageable 21.
eBay is one of the largest marketplaces in the world. The trading platform moved more than $75 billion in merchandise last year, with eBay collecting a fee for every item along the way. eBay's popularity has helped to create a true payment processing standard in PayPal, which itself moved more than 20% of global online payments last year. That's a jaw-dropping stat for eBay investors. Right now, PayPal boasts more active users than some of the second-tier payment card names, giving it a huge pool of users to sell merchants on. As the network makes its way into brick-and-mortar stores, it's very conceivable that eBay's auction site could eventually become a side-business for the firm, not the other way around. That said, some of PayPal's policies are very unfriendly to customers, a stark contrast to conventional payment processors. The firm will need to work on its bedside manner if it wants to continue to grow its userbase.
Meanwhile, auctions still make up the biggest part of the business. By being on both sides of auction transactions (eBay caters to both buyers and sellers), the firm has found a lucrative business catering to small business, with everything from shopping cart software to invoicing platforms. Investors should appreciate the fact that eBay tends to focus on entering new markets that are instantly monetized -- unlike some of its conspicuous tech sector peers.
- [By WALLSTCHEATSHEET]
Ebay is an established company that has made a name for itself pioneering internet commerce. The company’s�PayPal has reportedly filed a patent application that hints to a possible launch of its own virtual currency. The stock has moved higher in recent years and is currently trading mid range. Over the last four quarters, earnings have been mixed while revenues have been rising, which has left investors pleased. Relative to its peers and sector, eBay has been a relative year-to-date performance leader. Look for Ebay to OUTPERFORM.
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI)
IAC/InterActiveCorp engages in the Internet business in the United States and internationally. The company�s Search segment develops, markets, and distributes various downloadable toolbars; provides search, reference, and content services through its destination search and other Websites, including Ask.com and Dictionary.com; and aggregates and integrates local advertising and content for distribution to publishers on Web and mobile platforms, as well as markets and distributes mobile applications through which it provides search and additional services. Its Match segment offers subscription-based and advertiser-supported online personals services through its Websites comprising Match.com, Chemistry.com, OurTime.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, and OkCupid.com, as well as through mobile applications and Meetic-branded Websites. The company�s ServiceMagic segment offers Market Match service that matches consumers with service professionals; Exact Match service, which enables con sumers to review service professional profiles and select the service professional that meets their specific needs; and 1800Contractor.com, an online directory of service professionals. This segment also offers Website design and hosting services. Its Media and Other segment operates CollegeHumor.com, an online entertainment Website that targets young males; Vimeo, a Website on which users can upload, share, and view video; and Pronto.com, a comparison search engine. This segment also engages in the creation of video content for various distribution platforms; and operates as an Internet retailer of footwear and related apparel and accessories, as well as focuses on multimedia business. The company was formerly known as InterActiveCorp and changed its name to IAC/InterActiveCorp in July 2004. IAC/InterActiveCorp was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Timothy Lutts, Publisher, Cabot Heritage Corporation]
In 2004, TripAdvisor (TRIP) was purchased by conglomerate Interactive Corp (IACI), which spun off its travel businesses under the name of Expedia in 2005. In December 2011, TripAdvisor was spun off from Expedia in an IPO.
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO)
Yahoo! Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a digital media company that delivers personalized digital content and experiences through various devices worldwide. It offers online properties and services to users; and a range of marketing services to businesses. The company?s communications and communities offerings include Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, Flickr, and Connected TV, which provide a range of communication and social services to users and small businesses enabling users to organize into groups and share knowledge, common interests, and photos. Its search products comprise Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Local, available free to users to navigate the Internet and discover content. The company?s marketplaces offerings and services include Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Travel, Yahoo! Real Estate, Yahoo! Autos, and Yahoo! Small Business, which allow users to research specific topics, products, services, or areas of interest by review ing and exchanging information, obtaining contact details, or considering offers from providers of goods, services, or parties with similar interests. Its media offerings comprise Yahoo! Homepage, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Toolbar, Yahoo! Entertainment & Lifestyles, Yahoo! Contributor Network, and Yahoo! Pulse, which are designed to engage users with online content and services on the Web. The company also offers marketing services, such as display and search advertising, listing-based services, and commerce-based transactions to advertisers. In addition, it provides software and platform offerings for third-party developers, advertisers, and publishers, such as Yahoo! Developer Network, Yahoo! Open Strategy, Yahoo! Application Platform, Yahoo! Updates, Yahoo! Query Language, and Yahoo! Search BOSS. The company has strategic alliances with Nokia and ABC News, Inc. Yahoo! Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Californi a.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Daniel Sparks]
Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO ) undoubtedly paid a hefty fee to acquire Tumblr. The company must have some very good plans of what exactly to do with the microblogging service. While Yahoo! has made it very clear that it wants to keep Tumblr operating independently, it's less clear how Tumblr will help Yahoo!.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
I may regret suggesting this (maybe even today), but perhaps the market is stronger than thought.� The underlying fundamental are good – �earnings, cash-flow, debt levels, cash, dividends,�� but the perception is not. Fund and money managers have stayed in the market, with the joke being that they are too scared to be out of it, and new money has not significantly come in, even as markets have set new highs.� It is going to take an event to get either of these two to change their course ��but at this point Portugal does not appear to do it for fund managers. Earnings season starts tomorrow with the banks (Wells Fargo (WFC)), with Monday being Citigroup (C), Tuesday JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Yahoo (YHOO) and Intel (INTC) after the close. If we do better than the current high expectations call for, we could move over the 2K and back over 17K level and stay there, at least for through earnings season, however, if they disappoint, we could get that correction we keep talking (and talking, and talking) about.
- [By Rex Crum]
Among other online and social-media companies Facebook Inc. (FB) shed 15 cents a share to close at $54.56, LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) gave up 22 cents a share to close at $207.42 Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) �rose 53 cents to end the day at $40.12 a share.
- [By Kevin Chen]
Yahoo!� (NASDAQ: YHOO ) has picked up two more mobile start-ups: �GoPollGo and MileWise. Both companies will no longer support their services as they transition into Yahoo!, according to posts on their sites.
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: CYNK Technology Corp (CYNK)
Cynk Technology Corp., formerly Introbuzz, Inc., is a development stage-company. The Company intends to develop a social network business. Social networks are Web based services that allow individuals to post a profile and link their profile to other friends and organizations.
The Company intends to develop a database of professional and other business persons, as well as other interested persons in providing and utilizing contacts. As of November 14, 2012, the Company had not generated any revenue.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]
CYNK Technology (CYNK), the mysterious over-the-counter stock that at one point broke a $6 billion market cap, dropped roughly 80 percent in its first trades after a Securities and Exchange Commission halt. The SEC halted CYNK for two weeks following a massive rise in the stock's value -- it had been worth only a few cents per share in June, but it jumped above $21 on July 10. The Belize-based CYNK Technology supposedly operates a social networking site, but filings indicate it only has one employee and virtually no assets. Experts told CNBC the week of the SEC halt that they expected CYNK to fall precipitously after reopening, and its first day of trading is proving those predictions correct. When it was halted, the stock was worth just less than $14 per share, and is now below $3 a share after briefly hovering around $5 earlier Friday morning. An OTC Markets spokeswoman told Reuters that CYNK's shares were not trading on its platform, but were occurring over the phone. Earlier this week Reuters reported that OTC's CEO did not expect CYNK to trade on its platform at all after reopening, as no brokerages would file the required paperwork for the stock to trade on their exchanges. An SEC spokesman said that the organization cannot comment on the status of a company after a suspension period ends, citing an online explanation of the process. That document notes that broker-dealers may not solicit investors to trade the previously suspended OTC stock until they satisfy several regulatory requirements. The SEC warned, however, that "unsolicited" trading may occur after a reopening -- as CYNK is now seeing -- but "even though such trading is allowed, it can be very risky for investors without current and reliable information about the company."
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: Amazon.com Inc.(AMZN)
Amazon.com, Inc. operates as an online retailer in North America and internationally. It operates retail Web sites, including amazon.com and amazon.ca. The company serves consumers through its retail Web sites and focuses on selection, price, and convenience. It also offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products on its Web sites, and their own branded Web sites. In addition, the company serves developer customers through Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure that developers can use to enable virtually various type of business. Further, it manufactures and sells the Kindle e-reader. Additionally, the company provides fulfillment; miscellaneous marketing and promotional agreements, such as online advertising; and co-branded credit cards. Amazon.com, Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Amazon.com (AMZN) launched a new streaming music service on Thursday as part of its $99 Prime subscription service that includes free video streaming and free delivery. Overnight the company launched a web page seemingly announcing the new service. "Prime Music" would offer unlimited, ad-free streaming, free with Amazon Prime, according to the site. The company didn't provide further information. Amazon's head of digital music, Steve Boom, told Reuters that because the service is free with Prime, it offers more bang per buck than stand alone streaming services that can cost $10 a month. "If there area few tracks you want to buy, the cost of doing that in our store will be dramatically less than paying $120 a year for, frankly, a lot of music people don't listen to," Boom said in an interview with the news agency. The variety of music offered is expected to be wide but not deep, and wouldn't include the newest hits given a six-month delay after albums are launched. One industry insider called the new service "playlist heavy." Amazon hasn't responded to requests for comment, but a number of industry sources confirm that deals are inked and the press releases have been written. Both Sony Music and Warner Music Group have signed deals to license their music -- neither have commented -- but Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, isn't on board. There's no question that Amazon is already a huge player in the music business, selling music downloads. But with Apple (AAPL) spending $3 billion to buy Beats and its efforts behind iTunes Radio, and Google (GOOG) with its Play Music Store in reported talks to buy music service Songza, Amazon is under pressure to do more. One source said that while Amazon's launch of streaming music for prime is "certainly not a game changer, it's a step in the right direction." Labels and artists are particularly interested because the 'Prime' service is high visibility
- [By Rick Aristotle Munarriz]
AP On Monday, investors learned that Amazon.com (AMZN) is beefing up its shipment schedules in key markets by offering Sunday deliveries to its Amazon Prime customers. The Postal Service was a surprising choice given that FedEx (FDX) and UPS (UPS) were also in the running for Amazon's extended parcel delivery service business. While the new plan nice for customers, the biggest beneficiary may be the United States Postal Service. So now let's get into what this could mean for the struggling Postal Service. Dead Letters It wasn't that long ago that the U.S. Postal Service system was doing so badly that it was entertaining massive layoffs and ending Saturday deliveries. Things are starting to get better for it as the economic recovery shows signs of strengthening, but the Post Office is still losing a lot of money. The Postal Service generated $16.2 billion in revenue in its quarter ending in June, but that was more than offset by $16.9 billion in expenses. The $740 million loss is actually a dramatic improvement, and it would have been an actual profit if it wasn't for Congress-mandated health fund payments. (And who knows what its P&L statement might look like if Congress allowed the Post Office to charge enough for postage to cover its costs?) It may surprise some to see that revenue actually increased by nearly 4 percent during the period, but the growth isn't coming from traditional first-class mail. That business continues to slide as folks use e-mail, smartphones, and faxes to communicate without having to deal with postage stamped communiques. However, if the lines at the Post Office don't seem to be getting any shorter, it's because e-commerce is keeping postal workers busy. Less Mail in Our Boxes, More Mailed Boxes Revenue from package deliveries climbed nearly 9 percent during the June quarter, and at $2.9 billion now accounts for 18 percent of the Postal Service's total revenue. Amazon's move to start to sending Sunday deliveries through
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: Google Inc.(GOOG)
Google Inc. maintains an index of Web sites and other online content for users, advertisers, and Google network members and other content providers. It offers AdWords, an auction-based advertising program; AdSense program, which enables Web sites that are part of the Google Network to deliver ads from its AdWords advertisers; Google Display, a display advertising network that comprises the videos, text, images, and other interactive ads; DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a real-time auction marketplace for the trading of display ad space; and YouTube that provides video, interactive, and other ad formats for advertisers. The company also provides Google Mobile that optimizes Google?s applications for mobile devices in browser and downloadable form; and enables advertisers to run search ad campaigns on mobile devices, as well as Google Local that provides local information on the Web; and Google Boost for small businesses to participate in the ads auction. In addition, it offers And roid, an open source mobile software platform; Google Chrome OS, an open source operating system; Google Chrome, a Web browser; Google TV, a platform for the consumers to use the television and the Internet on a single screen; and Google Books platform to discover, search, and consume content from printed books online. Further, the company provides Google Apps, a cloud computing suite of message and collaboration tools, which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Sites; Google Search Appliance that offers real-time search of business and intranet applications, and public Web sites; Google Site Search, a custom search engine; Google Commerce Search for online retail enterprises; Google Checkout to make online shopping and payments streamlined and secure; Google Maps Application Programming Interface; and Google Earth Enterprise, a firewall software solution for imagery and data visualization. Google Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Tim Brugger]
What's faster than a speeding cable Internet connection, and able to leap between mobile computing and old-school TV in a single bound? If you ask Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) , the answer's simple: lightning-fast fiber-optic Internet service.
- [By Brian Nichols]
Given Facebook's� (NASDAQ: FB ) post-earnings gain, and its new all-time stock high, it's clear that the company struck gold in the second quarter. While investors can focus on an array of different data points, two key observations should be at the height of investors' focus, which conveniently involve BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY ) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) .
Top 10 Internet Companies To Own In Right Now: Symantec Corporation(SYMC)
Symantec Corporation provides security, storage, and systems management solutions internationally. The company?s Consumer segment delivers Internet security, PC tune-up, and online backup solutions and services to individual users and home offices. Its Security and Compliance segment provides solutions for endpoint security and management, compliance, messaging management, data loss prevention, encryption, and authentication services to large, medium, and small-sized businesses, as well as offers solutions through its software-as-a-service (SaaS) security offerings. This segment?s products enable customers to secure, provision, and remotely manage their laptops, PCs, mobile devices, and servers. The company?s Storage and Server Management segment provides storage and server management, backup, archiving, and data protection solutions across heterogeneous storage and server platforms, as well as solutions delivered through its SaaS offerings to large, medium, and small-s ized businesses. Symantec?s Services segment offers implementation services and solutions, including consulting, business critical services, education, and managed security services. The company also provides various enterprise support offerings, such as annual maintenance support contracts, including content, upgrades, and technical support. It sells its products through its eCommerce platform, as well as through distributors, direct marketers, Internet-based resellers, system builders, ISPs, and retail locations worldwide. Symantec markets and sells its products through distributors, retailers, direct marketers, Internet-based resellers, original equipment manufacturers, system builders, and Internet service providers; and its e-commerce channels, as well as direct sales force, value-added and large account resellers, and system integrators. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Anora Mahmudova]
Symantec Corp. (SYMC) slid 13% after the security-software maker fired Chief Executive Steve Bennett late Thursday and replaced him with board member Michael Brown.
- [By MONEYMORNING]
A big player here is Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), a global provider of security, storage, and systems management solutions with an extensive focus on managing consumer data and information.
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