Yahoo Inc. is set to allow outsiders to create new services using the world’s most popular consumer e-mail program, in the broadest move the Web has yet seen to enlist independent programmers to build a company’s products for it.

Officials of the world’s largest Internet media company said on Friday it planned to give away the underlying code to Yahoo Mail, one of the crown jewels of its business, in a bid to encourage software developers to build new applications based on e-mail.

The move to open up the underlying code of Yahoo Mail — used by 257 million people — is designed to spark development of thousands of new e-mail applications built not only by Yahoo engineers but by outside companies and individuals.

Chad Dickerson, head of the Sunnyvale company’s software developer relations program, said he believed that the open approach to programming represented the biggest single Web software ever to be opened up for public development.

“Yahoo is a very large company but we can’t build every applications that a user might want,” Dickerson said in an interview at Yahoo headquarters. “You can imagine tens of thousands of niche applications (springing) from Yahoo Mail.”

Tags: Yahoo Mail, Code Giveaway, Web Software

Amsterdam has the world’s busiest Internet exchange, thanks to nuclear physicists and mathematicians who in the 1980s connected their network needs with the academic belief that knowledge needs to be free.

At a time when the neutrality of the Internet is at stake, and Internet service providers (ISPs) are moving to prioritize their premium traffic, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange is a reminder that the Internet was built on the principle of the unrestricted exchange of ideas and information.

The popularity of the AMS-IX. the official name of the exchange, is the result of a liberal foundation which has created a place where ISPs can do business any way they like.

“Anything goes unless it’s forbidden’, was our motto from the beginning. We added a few rules later on, but any unnecessary organizing is being prevented,” said Rob Blokzijl from Nikhef, the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics in the Netherlands.

PayPal, the online payments unit of EBay Inc. has agreed with attorneys general from 28 U.S. states to improve how it notifies users of their consumer rights, the company said on Thursday.

Under the deal, PayPal will also pay $1.7 million to the states.

In addition, PayPal said it reached a settlement in a proposed class action lawsuit by PayPal customers in a U.S. federal court in Brooklyn. PayPal agreed to set up a settlement fund of $3.5 million, less court costs and attorneys fees.

PayPal said it will, among other things, shorten and streamline its user agreement and communicate more information relating to its protection programs. The company said it has already complied with many of the voluntary deal’s terms.

Changes include shortening the user notice that PayPal customers agree to when signing up for the company’s services. PayPal also agreed to clarify the buyer protections consumers have when conducting online financial transactions.

Tags: PayPal, eBay, Lawsuit, Consumer Rights

Cashing in on the Internet and search marketing boom in India is new entrant Yahoo!, with its newly launched Yahoo! Search Marketing for Indian marketers and consumers.

Yahoo! Search Marketing is present in 23 other countries and, this year, the company has plans to launch it in several other places.

This new offering from Yahoo! will help marketers to connect with consumers through the ‘Sponsored Search’, which will enable marketers to bid for highly visible placements on the web pages of Yahoo! and its other network websites (Yahoo! Partner Network) such as msn, cnn.com, etc., which will appear as a result of the key words searched for by the user. This again will depend on the number of keywords the marketer buys from Yahoo!

Another model that Yahoo! Search Marketing will provide is called ‘Content Match’, along with its partner networks, which will facilitate the placement of listings on content sites, newsletters, blogs and online publications, driving more traffic to a marketer’s site.

Yahoo! is extremely optimistic about the success of this venture in India courtesy the overwhelming statistics of Internet users in India.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing, Content Match

With the rise of the Internet, the phrase “permission marketing” has become the buzzword for a kinder, gentler form of cut-through-the-clutter marketing.

The idea, popularized by business guru Seth Godin, is that you stop intruding on your prospects (as with, say, TV commercials) and start giving them reasons (such as contests or e-newsletters) to “raise their hands” and invite you to tell them about your product.

But how do you practise this marketing mantra when you’re an entrepreneur selling to corporate executives — flinty-eyed recluses who would rather wrestle a water buffalo than offer you any kind of encouragement?

Catherine McQuaid, a Toronto-based business-development consultant (www.huntnewbiz.com), has a theory. She calls it “Big-Game Hunters in the Urban Jungle.” I think a better name is “Off-Target Marketing.” Either way, it’s an approach to prospecting that might help you build stronger relationships with hard-to-reach executives.

Tags: Off-target marketing, Internet Marketing, Permission marketing