News Australia

More businesses are taking advantage of the internet, with many finding the move online creates more revenue, a new survey has found. Research by accounting software provider MYOB has found that the number of Australian businesses now online has increased to 39 per cent, up from 35 per cent last November, with a further 22 [...]

STRUGGLING retail and banking sectors dragged the sharemarket into the red yesterday amid persistent concerns about debt problems in the US. A forecast dip in sales for retailer David Jones and fears of a downgrade in the US’s credit rating added to the market’s woes. Yesterday the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index was down 24.1 points, [...]

AUSTAR has announced its entry into definitive transaction agreements under which it will be acquired by FOXTEL by a series of transactions. As previously announced on May 26, 2011, the board of AUSTAR determined that it was in the best interest of its shareholders for the two companies to work together. The announcement came following [...]

The Retail Traders Association says Western Australia’s retail market remains weak despite recording an increase in turnover in May. The latest Bureau of Statistics figures show turnover rose 0.8 per cent in WA and 0.1 per cent in the Northern Territory. All other states posted a loss. The association’s Wayne Spencer says there have been [...]

A TELSTRA board member has accused the "big end of town" of arrogance, ignorance and naivety. "It seems to me that business generally has completely missed the major shift of political opinion in this country when it comes to environmental issues," Geoff Cousins told The Australian. "The suggestion that the government ought to ignore all [...]

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to open a formal antitrust probe into whether internet search giant Google has abused its dominance on the web, The Wall Street Journal reports. The newspaper, citing ‘people familiar with the matter,’ said the FTC is preparing to serve Google with civil subpoenas ‘signalling the start of [...]

The government’s National Consumer Credit Protection Act regulations will become law as of July 1, after the Senate yesterday allowed the controversial regulations that ban exit fees in mortgages. However, the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA), which had sought an exemption for smaller lenders from the banning of exit fees, has said while [...]

Men are leading the way when it comes to forging professional connections online, a new study has found. LinkedIn, a professional web-based networking site, studied the details of men and women across a range of industries and looked at the ratio of their online connections. Of their two million Australian users, they found that men [...]

Yesterday afternoon the Senate voted on a motion by  the Coalition and Independent Nick Xenophon to disallow the Government regulation to ban exit fees.  The strategy (backing MFAA’s campaign over the past few weeks) was to bring the Government to the table to prepare an amended regulation which would have exempted smaller lenders from the [...]

Telstra Corporation Ltd has confirmed it has reached agreement with the federal government to progressively disconnect its copper network and participate in the rollout of the national broadband network (NBN). Telstra says the agreement will deliver approximately $11 billion in replacement revenue through disconnection payments, and new revenues through payments for access to its infrastructure. [...]