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Shopping for customers

E-commerce companies get ready to release their post-holiday revenue figures, and a study concludes they spend too much for portal placement.

CNET News staff
As e-commerce companies get ready to release their revenue figures for the post-holiday period, a new study concludes that all the money they are spending for placement on portal sites may not yield much of a return. Meanwhile, software retailers cheer the end of a patent lawsuit.

Web shoppers keep buying
Thanks to such factors as customer satisfaction and growth in Net use, the usual post-holidays retail-sales downturn apparently hasn't affected Web merchants as much as traditional retailers.

Net merchants not cashing in on portal deals
Even though portals attract huge consumer audiences online, multimillion-dollar placement deals do not generate significant revenue for most Net stores, a new study says.

Retailers cheer end of patent challenge
E-Data drops its suit that accused more than a dozen companies of infringing on its patent covering downloadable software.