Amazon tops Black Friday online

For the second year in a row, Amazon.com was the most visited Web site on Black Friday among the top 500 retail sites, according to PC Mag.

Amazon received 13.55% of top retail traffic in the US, followed by Wal-Mart with 11.18%, Target with 5.65%, Best Buy with 4.62%, and Sears with 2.95%.

Amazon's Black Friday traffic was up 9% from the day before. Overall Black Friday retail traffic was up about 4% from the day before, Thanksgiving Day.

Internet service provider TalkTalk has renewed calls for the government to reassess its Digital Economy Bill, arguing that widespread public outrage over the legislation is growing, states Computing.co.uk.

Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk, says the popularity of TalkTalk's 'Don't Disconnect Us' petition on the government's number10.gov.uk Web site proved his point.

The petition has received over 24 000 signatures since it was set up, making it the sixth most popular on the site.

According to a report compiled by the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egyptians' Internet use is significantly lower than other countries of like socio-economic standing, reports Zawya.

Omar Soudodi, GM of Souq.com Egypt, an online market and auction site in the Middle East, described the disparity as a "tremendous growth opportunity for Internet service providers".

The report found that Internet use had penetrated only 16.7% of the Egyptian population as of last year. Of the 60% of large Egyptian enterprises utilising the Internet for business, almost 80% only send and receive e-mails. Of these, only 26% are making any attempt to leverage the Internet to deliver products or services online.