Brian Livingston

As credit-card issuers increasingly encourage recurring charges by merchants, some consumers are finding themselves caught in the middle. I reported in my May 23 and May 30 columns that two big changes had informally evolved over the last couple of years in the credit-card industry: • Major credit-card networks now allow a “recurring indicator” (a […]

If your business has tried to collect payments from your customers using authorized monthly charges to their credit cards, you may have found that it’s a lot more difficult than you expected. Consumers’ credit-card accounts are changing more rapidly than ever, due to the reissuance of card numbers to combat identity theft, heavy promotion of […]

Most consumers think their credit card expiration dates — the month and year in which their cards are supposed to be renewed — are a sacrosant security feature, without which a business can’t process a payment. In fact, big players in the U.S. consumer-sales industry have developed informal agreements with credit-card issuers that allow charges […]

There are some simple steps your company can take to demonstrate that the e-mails you’re sending aren’t spam. If you’re not taking them, many recipients are now ready and willing to filter your messages into the trash. I reported last week that large corporations have adopted new forms of “authenticated e-mail” at an astonishing rate. […]

When an 800-pound gorilla says, “You must prove to me that your e-mail isn’t spam, or else,” it’s amazing how fast a lot of other big apes will comply. I reported last week that 75 percent of Fortune 100 companies are now using Sender ID to positively identify their marketing e-mail messages. Even better, 45 […]

A grand experiment in “pay-to-play” e-mail will begin in the next few days, and the results will influence how we communicate for years to come. Goodmail Systems, which plans to charge some portion of 1 cent per e-mail to ensure that senders’ messages are delivered into AOL inboxes, will go live in a matter of […]

Laws in the People’s Republic of China allow anyone to copy Microsoft software (and many other things) without paying for a license. Ironically, the laws of the United States allow the same thing when it comes to font designs. For many years, copyright laws in the U.S. and some other countries have excluded the designs […]

A European agency has thrown out Microsoft’s registration of the new font that’s a trumpeted feature of the upcoming Windows Vista and Office 12. This calls into question whether the font is original or just a copy of someone else’s — with legal implications for Microsoft’s much-delayed products. Microsoft insists that Vista and Office won’t […]

Spam has gotten so out of control that some companies are not only deleting all the spam they receive every day, they’re deleting their own e-mail address every day, too. One entrepreneurial Web site operator thinks he’s come up with an inventive solution for e-tailers who want a “click here to e-mail us” link on […]

If you don’t have a ton of funds, but the drone of the PC fans in your office is driving you batty, it’s isn’t necessary to spend a lot of money to get a lot of relief. I wrote on March 14 that Zalman Tech Co., a Korean manufacturer, had developed two specialized PC cases […]