America Online

Napster Inc. will become the exclusive music subscription provider for AOL, replacing AOL's Music Now service and bringing Napster closer to 1 million customers. AOL's 350,000 paying music subscribers will be switched to Napster accounts over the next 60 days unless they opt out, the companies said Friday. Los Angeles-based Napster had a total of 566,000 customers as of Dec. 31.

AOL, the Internet unit of Time Warner Inc., said Monday that it had agreed to buy Swedish online marketing firm TradeDoubler for about $900 million to enhance its advertising capabilities in Europe. But the cash deal, which was recommended by the TradeDoubler board, ran into trouble as a major shareholder said it would vote against the transaction and other investors signaled that they would need a sweetener before approving it.

An Azusa man who defrauded users of Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit by sending e-mails requesting credit data became the first defendant found guilty by a jury under a 2003 federal law barring Internet spam. Jeffrey Goodin, 45, was convicted under the 2003 Can-Spam Act, the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said Tuesday. The statute prohibits sending unsolicited e-mail messages with falsified header, or return address, information.

In the latest sign that Internet companies are stepping up their pursuit of traditional TV advertisers, AOL on Tuesday jumped ahead of network prime-time's annual "upfront" advertising sales season by previewing its own "fall" lineup of programs.

Averting a looming court battle over how it has handled the exodus from its Internet dial-up service, AOL has agreed to make it easier for its remaining customers to leave as part of a $3-million settlement with 48 states and the District of Columbia.

AOL, a Time Warner Inc. unit, agreed to buy closely held Tacoda for technology to place Internet ads based on consumers' online behavior. New York-based Tacoda Inc. plans to track how users view AOL and its partner websites to come up with more targeted ads tied to those preferences. The purchase price is $200 million to $300 million, Dulles, Va.-based AOL said.

AOL is once again revamping its Netscape.com Web portal, dropping a year-old "social news" component in which visitors submitted news stories and blog entries and voted on them to determine how they're ranked on the site. AOL, the Internet services unit of Time Warner Inc., said it wasn't giving up on social news completely and would instead send interested visitors to a separate, yet-to-be-determined Web address.

Struggling Internet service AOL said Monday it would pare costs by cutting 2,000 jobs, or one-fifth of its global workforce, as part of its painful transition from a subscriber-based business to an online advertising forum. Job cuts will come in all parts of the company, a unit of Time Warner Inc., but one of the areas expected to be most affected is the Internet-access business that used to be AOL's core.

Harry Potter worked his magic, but continuing struggles at AOL cast a pall over Time Warner Inc.'s third-quarter financial results. The world's largest media company's movie division was one of the bright spots in Wednesday's quarterly report. Revenue there jumped 33%, boosted by the strong box-office performance of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Still, the AOL slowdown remains a big headache for President Jeffrey L. Bewkes, who inherits the chief executive job Jan.