Japan's largest cellular telephone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, and America Online (AOL) are close to a deal that would allow customers of cellular Internet services to access AOL content on their telephone handsets, according to two local media reports Wednesday. Both the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper and Japanese public television station NHK said the two companies were working on a deal that could be signed as early as August.

The latest figures from Nielsen//NetRatings show that among the most highly used search engines, Yahoo has maintained its usual lead while its major competitors -- except for MSN -- have lost some ground. Among the smaller players, Google's audience continues to grow while search newcomer iWon is a firmly established as a competitor against some older search services.

The European Commission (EC) is expected shortly to make a key antitrust ruling on a business-to-business (B2B) Internet portal that could have significant ramifications on other B2B portals, both existing and planned. The EC's antitrust division is concerned that such B2B portals act against the interests of free market competition, since new and third-party firms are effectively excluded from what may be construed as a cartel trading. The site in question, MyAircraft.com, is a joint venture between Honeywell International, i2 Technologies and United Technologies, and acts as sales portal for aircraft spare parts and engines. Since the MyAircraft.com portal was announced, a number of other aerospace manufacturers, including British Aerospace, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have outlined plans to create a Global Aerospace and Defence Trading Exchange (GADTE).

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) will issue more than 3.4 million shares of common stock in exchange for all outstanding shares, options and warrants of eGroups. The acquisition, which is subject to the approval of eGroups' stockholders and regulatory approval, will be accounted for as a pooling of interests and is expected to be completed in the third quarter. Yahoo!, who kicked off the week by unveiling its corporate portal initiative, adds a leading provider of group e-mail communications with the eGroups acquisition. In conjunction with Yahoo! Clubs, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger, the deal points to the portal giant's strategy to become a leading communications provider on the Net.

The CMGI Inc.-owned AltaVista portal this week unveiled a rewards program that extends to all of its shopping partner sites, in hopes that the points program will draw e-commerce customers from its competitors. The rewards program is the first that a CMGI company has deployed with the help of Netcentives Inc., which the company allied with -- and took an equity stake in -- last month. Netcentives will likely create points-based loyalty programs for many of the holding company's 70 sites.