As online shopping rises, so do cybersecurity threats associated with it. Security blog Krebsonsecurity.com warned consumers Wednesday of an email scam that has picked up on the Internet since Thanksgiving, asking consumers to confirm an e-commerce order or package shipment. According to blogger Brian Krebs, malware purveyors and spammers are “blasting these missives by the millions each day in a bid to trick people into giving up control over their computers and identities.” The methods the spammers use are “reliably successful,” especially during the holidays when victims are caught off-guard, he said. Shoppers who “know better” than to click links and attachments are often “intensely focused on making sure their online orders arrive before Dec. 25,” he said. Krebs posted sample spam emails purported to be from Costco, Home Depot, Target and Walmart, urging recipients to click on links to track purchases. Krebs urged consumers who get such emails to open a Web browser and check their accounts with the online merchant instead. A spokesman for Target, one of the first high-profile retailers hit by a massive security data breach last year, said Target urges its customers to “be on guard against phishing scams, which are designed to trick customers into providing personal information in response to phony emails.” Target provides a link on its website on how to avoid such scams, he said.

Cyber Monday’s online sales are all the more reason for Congress to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, said a National Governors Association news release Monday. HR-684 would let states tax remote sellers with annual revenue exceeding $1 million. “As 130 million Americans make purchases online this Cyber Monday, the nation’s small businesses suffer, jobs are lost and states lose out on revenue owed them because of an unfair loophole in the law,” said NGA. “No matter how you do business in a state, you have to play by that states rules,” said NGA Executive Director Dan Crippen. “Marketplace Fairness lets competition, not tax loopholes, determine who will thrive in our modern marketplace,” he said. “If taxes on Internet sales are not collected, the sales tax base will continue to erode and ultimately force states to increase, or not be able to reduce, other taxes.” Sen. Tex Cruz, R-Texas, has been a critic of HR-684 and has warned about the possibility of the bill’s passage during the lame-duck session of Congress (see 1411140047).

Retail e-commerce spending from desktop computers reached $17.5 billion for the first 23 days of the 2014 holiday selling season through Nov. 24, 11 percent above the same period a year earlier, comScore said in a Tuesday report. Nov. 21 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $914 million in desktop spending, while spending topped $900 million on two other shopping dates, Nov. 12 and Nov. 19, the firm said: "Although current growth rates are trailing slightly the anticipated full season growth rate, it is important to note that this gap should be essentially made up with the extra shopping day between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year compared to last year. In addition, given the recent strength on certain individual spending days it is likely we'll see our first ever billion dollar spending day occur prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, before the heaviest part of the season even kicks off."

"If the Internet sales tax becomes law, small online retailers would have to comply with over 9,600 tax jurisdictions," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in a video Friday. Cruz was referring to the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684), which would let states tax remote sellers with annual revenue exceeding $1 million. “The corporate lobbyists who want Internet taxes to crush their competition see a chance to make it law during the lame duck session of Congress,” Cruz said. Ten senators who helped pass the MFA in the Senate last year are leaving office at the end of this congressional term, he said. “This may be their last, best chance to pass it,” said Cruz. “We must say 'no.'” Congress shouldn’t try to combine the MFA with the Internet Tax Fairness Act, which would ban Internet access taxes, said Bartlett Cleland, Institute for Policy Innovation resident scholar-tax and innovation policy, in a news release Friday. If that happens, the “recent protests in Hungary opposing similar attempts will look mild compared to the anger of an electorate full of online consumers that deserves much better,” he said. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has reportedly said that Boehner will block the MFA in the lame duck (see 1411120016).

The Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition urged congressional leaders in a letter Thursday to make ITFA permanent. The coalition includes the American Cable Association, Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA and USTelecom. They said it’s imperative for Congress to pass ITFA, which prohibits Internet access taxes, before it expires Dec. 11. The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Marketplace Fairness Coalition (MFC) sent a letter Wednesday to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, asking that the House immediately pass the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684). MFA would let states tax remote sellers with yearly revenue exceeding $1 million. A Boehner spokesman said Monday that the bill won’t be addressed during the lame duck, but that the House Judiciary Committee would continue to explore the issue, media reported. He said the House and Senate should focus on passing the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which would make permanent the ban on Internet access taxes. "We're pleased to see that Speaker Boehner understands the threat that the misnamed Marketplace Fairness Act poses to small e-retailers in Ohio and across the country,” said Executive Director Phil Bond of the Web Enabled Retailers Helping Expand Retail Employment, a retail association for small businesses, in a statement Monday. “Boehner has drawn a line in the sand saying the American people come first and politicians need to keep their hands off the Internet,” said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist in a statement Tuesday. “The rapid growth of e-commerce should benefit all sellers,” said MFC. “The status quo, however, affords special treatment to ‘remote sellers’, thereby distorting the marketplace and hindering the ability of many local brick-and-mortar businesses to compete.”

CEA President Gary Shapiro rejected warnings voiced earlier this week by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that leaders in both parties will likely use the lame-duck Congress to push through a nationwide Internet sales tax (see 1411040021), in an interview Wednesday. Shapiro also said he rejects Cruz’s premise that Internet taxes are one of the favorite causes of corporate lobbyists to seek new taxes to help big businesses at the expense of the little guy. "There is the Senator Cruz-Grover Norquist viewpoint that always mischaracterizes that issue," Shapiro said. Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform. It’s not that lobbyists want to assess new taxes on e-commerce sales, it’s "that those taxes are required to be paid already under the laws of 45 states," Shapiro said. "They’re just not being paid." Shapiro puts the odds of Internet sales tax legislation being moved in the lame-duck Congress at "probably a little less than 50-50," he said. "There is legislation which must pass in the lame-duck session -- the budget agreement. Senators have said that budget agreement is where this Internet sales tax legislation will go. It did already pass the Senate. There is some reluctance by Speaker [John] Boehner [R-Ohio] to pass it." The legislation "is very important to companies like Fry’s and Best Buy and Walmart and every other brick-and-mortar retailer which employs real people," Shapiro said. "They’re at a competitive disadvantage because their customers are not paying the sales tax that they owe when they buy online." Cruz and Norquist "have mischaracterized this as a new tax," when "it’s not a new tax at all," Shapiro said. "It’s a tax that consumers are responsible for, but only a very small number pay." Representatives for Cruz and Norquist didn't comment.

Amazon gave Prime members another reason to renew their annual membership when it added unlimited photo storage in Amazon’s Cloud Drive as a user benefit. Prime members can store existing photo collections, automatically upload new photos taken and access them "anytime, anywhere," Amazon said on Tuesday. Users can upload photos from iOS and Android devices, Fire tablets, Fire phones, and Mac and Windows computers, and they can access photos from those devices as well as from the Fire TV Stick, PlayStation 3 and 4 game consoles and select LG and Samsung TVs, it said. Images can be stored in the original version, so consumers “never have to worry about losing the full resolution image,” Amazon said.

Amazon's official launch to the holiday shopping season kicks off Saturday with a Countdown to Black Friday Deals Week event. Counting down to Black Friday, Amazon will offer "more deals, all day, every day," it said Thursday. Overall during the holiday season, Amazon will offer more than 15,000 Lightning Deals, it said, including new early access deals for Prime members. Amazon’s spin-off site, MyHabit, will feature daily sales events for fashion and lifestyle brands, it said, and Nov. 1 to Dec. 22, Amazon will offer two Deals of the Day in addition to the Lightning Deals. An upcoming electronics deal Amazon highlighted is $150 off the Canon EOS Rebel T5i digital SLR camera. A designated area has been set aside for Amazon Black Friday sales, it said. In addition to its own Kindle and Fire TV products, Amazon cited electronics including the LeapFrog LeapBand, VTech Kidizoom, Samsung Galaxy Gear, Bose SoundLink Mini speaker and the Misfit Shine as target gift items for the season. The e-tailer outlined mobile shopping trends, saying more than half of Amazon customers shopped using a mobile device last year. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon customers ordered more than five toys per second from a mobile device, it said. Amazon’s shopping app enables customers to shop for a product via voice or visual scan to speed up the shopping cycle, it said. Amazon's goal is for consumers to go from “I want that” to “I bought that” in less than 30 seconds. A new social media tie-in allows customers to view a tweet from a favorite artist, brand or friend with an embedded product link and then add #Amazoncart or #Amazonwishlist to the reply to have the product automatically added to their Amazon cart or wish list, the company said.

DHgate said it’s the first Chinese e-commerce company to offer a protection plan and repair service through SquareTrade. “This type of protection for buyers is almost unheard of” in the international cross-border e-commerce market, said DHgate Chief Operating Officer Noah Herschman. The partnership makes SquareTrade protection plans available for cellphones, tablets, computers, digital media players, home AV equipment and other CE products. DHgate CEO Diane Wang said customers, including U.S. consumers, “will have a better shopping experience and post-sales service, while sellers will be able to reduce their service costs and increase their transaction volume.” SquareTrade, based in San Francisco, is a privately held company backed in part by Bain Capital, and its warranties are available with purchases from e-commerce companies including Amazon and eBay. Consumers now can buy during the checkout process SquareTrade protection that includes free return shipping on portable items for any mechanical or electrical failures, DHgate said Monday. Customers can file a claim and have a product repaired within five business days, and customers will be reimbursed for the cost of products that can’t be repaired, DHgate said. Raj Kapoor, senior vice president of SquareTrade North America, called China an “increasingly important market” and said the partnership will enable it to better understand the needs of Chinese suppliers. DHgate has 5.5 million enterprise and consumer customers in more than 200 countries that buy goods from 1.2 million sellers in 33 China provinces, it said. The U.S. accounts for 50 percent of total merchandise sales for DHgate, it said.