Carrier BT provides the British intelligence agency GCHQ and its American counterpart the NSA with direct access to customer data through the Internet modems it supplies, claims a 50-page document posted anonymously on the Cryptome site today.

From letting Facebook users simply comment 'sold' to buy an item to engaging your customers, CIO.com looks at how a small business should invest in Facebook as a social commerce channel.

"Privacy is dead -- get over it," has been a mantra of private investigators for years.

Thanks to McDonald's and Starbucks, free wireless networking is available every 200 yards or so, at least in metropolitan areas of the United States. Still, many merchants--especially smaller "mom & pop" establishments--don't provide the service. Purple WiFi has a business model that can help these businesses offer free Wi-Fi, and seems like a win-win for both the business and the customers.

Microsoft has erected a gigantic Surface in London's Trafalgar Square, with a roughly 383-inch display. Visitors can walk up to the oversized Surface and stomp on the attached jumbo keyboard to interact with apps.

Hewlett-Packard has assembled a number of its data-mining software programs into a service, called the HP Digital Marketing Hub, that can synthesize multiple sources of marketing data to help organizations better identify potential customers.

Recent changes to Google's search algorithm, its keyword planner tool and the availability of search query data may have you rethinking your SEO and online marketing strategies, but experts say it's best not to overthink things.

Linkett is redefining "TV advertising". The Canadian company has created a digital signage solution that detects a shopper walking by a TV and lures them to stop and interact with ads by offering them content they can grab with their phone.

There's no question that data analytics are playing an increasingly important role for marketing departments, but many marketers aren't getting what they need from the CIO. If IT can't deliver, CIOs should expect CMOs to go around them.

Sophisticated marketing initiatives that rely heavily on analytics and back-end systems integration are inspiring IT and marketing pros to collaborate more closely.

There's a fine line between tracking the behaviors of customers in your brick-and-mortar store and spying on them. The technology discussed here uses data from customers' smartphones in conjunction with opt-in apps to offer patrons deals and show retailers what's happening in their stores.

Delivering a dynamic and engaging mobile experience is becoming essential to retailers, and big data marketing applications company BloomReach believes that its new big data application is the key.

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated analytics tools, virutally every business owner now has access to an array of information about his or her customers.

There are many ways to connect with customers, but which ways are the most effective? Business owners and managers as well as customer relationship experts share their tips on how and where to best engage with existing and prospective customers.

Further boosting its presence in the field of product marketing, Adobe is acquiring campaign management software provider Neolane for approximately US$600 million in cash.

PayPal, which claims more than 128 million active accounts in 193 markets and 25 currencies around the globe, is now looking at outer space.

Kirsten Lynch, CMO at US-based Vail Resorts, says her partnership with the CIO leads to better guest experiences.

Google CEO Larry Page strongly denied on Friday that Google allowed the U.S. government back door access to its data centers via a controversial snooping program revealed this week called PRISM.