Some publishing industry groups have come forward in opposition of Amazon's efforts to control certain generic top-level Internet domain (gTLD) names.

The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild have opposed Amazon's efforts to control gTLD names that end in suffixes like .read, .book and .author.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has apologized for the outage that disrupted Netflix's video service for a number of users on Christmas Eve.

In a move which is being seen as an effort by online retail giant Amazon to offer more direct competition to streaming services, the company has recently made a change to its Prime service, giving some customers the option of a monthly subscription instead of a full year commitment.

According to a recent report from The Verge, online retailer Amazon is apparently working on a smartphone of its own; and will probably make an announcement about the handset at its press event today, September 6.

In a move which apparently has something to do with Amazon's much-rumored Kindle refresh, and Google's decision to venture into the tablet arena with its 7-inch Nexus tablet, Barnes and Noble (B&N) has recently announced that it is slashing the cost of its Nook devices.

With hackers successfully tricking the Apple and Amazon support staff into assisting them to compromise the online accounts of journalist Mat Honan last week, the two companies have now introduced some changes in their security policies.

According to a Thursday announcement by the US Attorney's office, 25-year-old Moscow resident Dmitry Olegovich Zubakha, suspected to be the mastermind behind two botnet-based distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Amazon. com, has been arrested in Cyprus. Detained on an international warrant on Wednesday, Zubakha now awaits a possible extradition to the US.