Web Portal

Yahoo announced on August 25 it has agreed to acquire Maktoob.com, a Dubai-based online community with more than 16.5 million users. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal combines Yahoo's products with Maktoob's local online content that caters to the Arab world. The combined audiences also give advertisers greater reach.

Advertising placed through ad networks and portals generated the smallest change for branding metrics, and in some cases made no difference for advertisers, according to findings of a study released August 13 by the Online Publishers Association, a trade organization for publishers such as ABCNews.com, CNN, CondeNet, Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal.

Carpet One Floor & Home, a floor covering cooperative with more than 1,000 retail locations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, recently launched an e-commerce platform supporting its bricks-and-mortar stores using the Blueport Commerce service. Each store has its own URL and unique site reflecting its offerings and enabling users to benefit from local promotions and services. At the same time, retailers benefit from the corporate Carpet One Floor & Home brand name when consumers visit the corporate Web site, which is then customized to replicate the local site closest to where they are located.

Yahoo on Tuesday debuted a new feature that enables people to opt out of mobile ads that are based on behavioral targeting. The announcement was made on its Yahoo Policy Blog and is the Web portal's latest effort toward its commitment to consumer data privacy.