Update on the possible extension of the ban on Internet access taxes: It hasn't happened yet.

A federal investigation of online fraud has netted more than 125 arrests or convictions since it started last month, authorities said today.

I promised myself I wasn't going to do another online holiday shopping story anytime soon.

I never open an e-mail I don't trust, and I trust few. I have a subconscious limit to the amount of pop-ups I can handle without annoying me, and I choose my Web sites wisely. I'll let a few rich-media applications take over my screen, for variety and trying to do my bit for online advertising. But I'm careful with just about everything I do online, even using two personal e-mail accounts.

Three years after the PC industry began showing signs of weakness, there are indications that it's coming back. Retail sales of computer products increased 8 percent to $21.7 billion in the first nine months of 2003, according to a study released this morning by The NPD Group. That compares to growth of 2.8 percent for the same period in 2002.

There's a lot of smart marketing going on in the efforts to can spam. Yesterday, some of the nation's largest trade groups bought space in the Roll Call, a newspaper read by lawmakers, urging them to pass an anti-spam bill right away.

Move over iTunes. Take a nap Napster. Wal-Mart's coming to town. Those four words have struck fear in the heart of many a retailer over the past two decades and now it's poised to strike some e-tailers. It's a familiar scene. Wal-Mart arrives. Smaller stores lose customers, lose market share - sooner or later, lose business.

Should the Internet be taxed? That's the question facing the Senate this week, as it debates whether it should extend a ban on state and local taxes on Internet connections.

Here's another example of how the Internet is changing the way we do business. (If we needed it.)

When Howard Dean decided whether he should forgo public funding of his presidential campaign in an effort to raise more money, he consulted the oracle that helped him surge ahead of the pack of Democratic candidates.