Amazon strengthens fashion focus

Online retailer Amazon has refreshed its online clothing and shoe business with a focus on high-end style as it vies with rivals such as Yoox and Net-A-Porter in the expanding online fashion market, reports Financial Times.

US online sales of clothing shoes and accessories grew 17% last year to $27 billion, according to Forrester Research. Growth is expected to outstrip other categories such as electronics over the next five years.

Amazon is recruiting software engineers who it says will build "great new features to change the way people shop for clothing" with the retailer, as well as graphic designers with experience of high-end fashion retailing.

In the wake of a series of privacy missteps by Google, Facebook, and other companies, a growing chorus on Capitol Hill is calling for major online privacy legislation and Silicon Valley companies are girding for the battle, writes Seattle Times.

Politicians in Washington DC say they are increasingly concerned about how tech companies' treatment of personal data could infringe on constituents' online privacy.

Even as Congress begins to debate a controversial bill intended to update online privacy rules, a constant drip of headlines about privacy problems affecting Google, Facebook and, now, Apple, has caused several congressional committees, the Obama administration, and members of Congress from both political parties to home in on the issue.

The volume of Shanghai's e-business has made considerable progress and accounted for nearly 22% of the local GDP in 2009, compared with 5% in 2002, according to the latest statistics released by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, states People's Daily Online.

The volume of Shanghai's e-business reached 325 billion yuan in 2009, nearly 13 times more than the 2002 figure of 2.5 billion yuan. At present, Shanghai already has a number of e-business enterprises such as Bailian Group, Shanghai Bianlitong and eBay China.

Meanwhile, the online shopping service system based on third-party payment enterprises has improved day by day. As a result, a new round of development in the traditional business service sector has been established in Shanghai.