Stories by: Miguel Helft

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit against online auctioneer eBay Inc., a ruling the company said would immunize it against other copyright and trademark infringement claims.

A visitor to eBay Inc.'s San Jose, Calif., headquarters one recent morning came upon an unusual scene. Some 20 men and women were milling around until suddenly a company official emerged and called for new employees to follow him for an orientation. The lobby emptied.

No one at Webvan's San Diego operations saw it coming. In mid-January, four months after acquiring rival HomeGrocer.com, Webvan was set to unite the two most powerful online grocers under one brand and one technology platform. It was a milestone, the first step toward the efficiency the companies had promised Wall Street at the time of the US$1.2 billion merger. HomeGrocer's San Diego warehouse would switch over to Webvan's technology, and other facilities would follow.

In its second alliance with an offline chain, Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday that it would run the online operations for rival Borders Group Inc.

When the Russian women's gymnastics team walked away from the Olympics finals with a silver medal on Tuesday, the six team members had tears of disappointment, not pride, in their eyes. The Russian team had gone to Sydney with one goal: Bring home the gold.

To Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) , it seemed like a good idea: to be up-front with its customers and put to rest latent fears that it might share their shopping habits with others. But the company's effort to look like a responsible citizen seems to have backfired.

Even Amazon.com's staunchest bulls are pulling in their horns. None other than Henry Blodget, the Merrill Lynch Internet analyst, cut his rating on Amazon.com last week after the online retailer reported slightly disappointing second-quarter earnings.

In the latest sign of consolidation in the Internet retail industry, sports retailer MVP.com Inc., agreed Tuesday to buy PlanetOutdoors.com, an outdoor gear and apparel Web site.

To understand how polarizing the debate over Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has become, consider the difference of opinion at Lehman Brothers.

Online retailer Petstore.com expired unceremoniously today, laying off most of its remaining employees and selling off some of its assets to struggling rival Pets.com. The move comes two weeks after the Emeryville, Calif.-based company fired a large portion of its workforce, which stood at about 200 earlier this year.

Troubled online drugstore PlanetRx.com (PLRX) quietly laid off about 70 employees last week, or about 15 percent of its workforce, hoping to reduce its losses as the company explores alternatives for remaining in business in the long term.