Apple accused of avoiding billions in overseas taxes. 

Hershey launches new brand to get piece of China market.

Foxconn confirms employee deaths.

Best Buy swings to a loss on lower revenues.

Burberry is lifted by China performance.

Chevrolet joins Mad Men buzz on Twitter.

Chris-Craft rebuilds boat maker after recession.

Flowers Foods predicts "record year" after acquisition of Hostess brands.

Giorgio Armani profit is boosted by Asia.

GrubHub and Seamless merge their food ordering services.Continue reading...

Reports broke late last week alleging that Bloomberg reporters were using the Bloomberg terminal to track (some might say stalk) employees at its financial services clients such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, all the way up to high-profile individuals such as Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner — even, apparently, the new company's namesake founder, Michael Bloomberg. 

Following a company-wide email on Friday and a Buzzfeed report that this ability was disclosed by a Bloomberg TV reporter two years ago, Bloomberg L.P. CEO Dan Doctoroff acknowledged in a story published by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the a firewall should have prevented its journalists from accessing such user data long "earlier":Continue reading...

The U.S. federal government still defines the act of marriage as one taking place between a man and a woman even though a number of states have made gay marriage legal and President Obama made it clear in his Inauguration speech (and other speeches since) that gay marriage is something he firmly believes in. “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said after being sworn in on Jan. 21 by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts will have a lot to do with possibly making a change to the way the federal government defines marriage when his Court hears two gay-marriage-related cases on March 26 and 27. Nearly 300 companies came out Wednesday to “urge the U.S. Supreme Court … to strike down a federal law that restricts the definition of marriage to heterosexual unions,” Reuters reports.

Considering the size and number of brands taking part, it will be hard for conservatives who have long opposed gay marriage to try and boycott everyone involved.Continue reading...

Disney and Netflix sign landmark agreement for the web streaming service.

GlaxoSmithKline begins assembling new global branding effort on its impact around the world.

Tesco bails out of Fresh & Easy venture in U.S.

AOL's Advertising.com group acquires Buysight.

Apple upgrades iTunes, secures USPTO patent for "retina."

Beer tax dispute heats up in Europe.

Blu Dot tests Twitter game of musical chairs.

BMW has US luxury auto sales crown in its sights.

Campbell Soup Company donates $500K to Salvation Army.

Citigroup announces 11,000 job cuts and $1B charge.Continue reading...

"Buyer beware" applies now, more than ever, as holiday shoppers take to the web and mobile to snap up bargains. According to the latest MarkMonitor Shopping Report, one in five bargain hunters in the U.S. and Europe mistakenly shopped on e-commerce sites selling counterfeit goods while searching for deals online.

“Consumers are being waylaid by rogue e-commerce sites, causing brands to lose business. The findings from our Shopping Report underscore the importance of developing proactive brand protection strategies in the digital age,” said Fredrick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor, Thomson Reuters' enterprise brand protection business.

Working with Nielsen “to analyze anonymized data from Nielsen’s permissioned online panelists in six countries over a nine-month period, nearly five million shopping sessions were surveyed…focusing on the search terms the shoppers employed, such as 'fake,’ 'replica,’ 'cheap' or ‘discount,’ to determine their motivation.”

The MarkMonitor Shopping Report examined multiple demographics including age, income, education levels, and household size, and found that there are only minimal differences between online consumers seeking counterfeit goods and bargain hunters looking for a good deal on legitimate goods.

“These findings really challenge the common assumption that consumers who purchase counterfeit goods are distinctly different than those consumers buying genuine goods,” said Eric Solomon, SVP, global digital audience measurement, Nielsen.

“Deal seekers outnumbered consumers seeking fakes at the rate of 20 to 1,” notes the release from MarkMonitor, but deceptive pricing on counterfeit goods, often priced comparably to legitimate goods on sale, discounted at 25–50% off list prices, suggest ‘blowout’ or year-ender sales and lure unsuspecting shoppers.Continue reading...

Last week, educational and consumer (via Penguin) publishing giant Pearson and Bertelsmann combined their book publishing divisions, Random House and Penguin, exponentially increasing their reach and scale in light of prodigious growth from e-books and digital retailers. Now comes word that Pearson's The Financial Times newspaper brand is in play and could be sold for as much as £1bn in a "trophy hunt" by potential buyers following John Fallon’s appointment as head of parent Pearson’s education division, replacing CEO Marjorie Scardino, one of the UK's highest-profile female corporate leaders, who is poised to step down in January after 16 years at the helm.

While Fallon affirmed Pearson’s commitment to the FT, saying it is a "highly valued and very valuable part of Pearson" to the Guardian, analysts predict the £1bn may be hard to forgo. Fallon is said to have no “emotional commitment" to the FT Group, which also own a 50% stake in the Economist and analysts at Deutsche Bank see his ascension as accelerating Pearson's digital transformation, including the "value tied up in non-core assets such as FT."Continue reading...

Thomson Reuters’ acquisition of MarkMonitor underscores the increasing threat to brands from digital piracy. With Internet commerce accounting for more than 20% of GDP growth in mature countries, piracy and counterfeiting are costing companies more than $600 billion per year.

The San Francisco-based MarkMonitor uses a SaaS delivery model, providing technology and expertise to protect revenue and reputation for more than half of Fortune 100 businesses.Continue reading...

AOL defends strategy.

BMW drivers can now Yelp in their cars.

British Airways parent IAG beats Virgin in BMI airline-takeover battle, as Lufthansa sells troubled airline.

Facebook (which aims to be a blue chip) is the most-searched term in the U.S. for third year running.

Geico partners with Major League Fishing and Outdoor Channel.

Hyundai launches racing game on Times Square billboard.

NBC gets sports-programming commitment from Red Bull.

Nike counts on social media.Continue reading...