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NOW THERE’S AN IDEA The Massachusetts Revenue Department says it will sue Internet cigarette retailers in an effort to track down customers evading the state’s $1.51-per-pack excise tax. (States lose more than $1.5 billion a year through evaded cigarette taxes, according to some estimates.) Officials have already obtained lists of customers from some shipping companies, resulting in about $162,000 in tax payments. No word yet, though, whether officials plan on squeezing other online retailers or their customers.

BRICKS LICK CLICKS U.S. consumers bought $17.2 billion worth of merchandise online during the fourth quarter, up 25 percent from the previous year — but that’s still only 1.9 percent of the $918 billion they spent in stores, according to the Commerce Department. About 30 percent of those off-line purchases were researched online, says Jupiter Research.

‘CANDI’ STORES Political candidates have gotten hip to online retailing as a way to help bolster campaign coffers. Those selling everything from campaign buttons to clothing in the recent Democratic primary race included Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Gov. Howard Dean.

 

 

 

 

BLOW TO BOOKSTORES Some book publishers are cutting out retailers and selling direct to the public over the Web. Penguin became the latest to do so, following similar initiatives by Norton, Rodale and Scholastic. “It doesn’t make sense for publishers to compete with the people who sell their books,” one book store owner told The Associated Press. Penguin says it’s only doing it with some books — for now.

 

MALLS SAFER THAN EVER

Internet fraud surged 52 percent last year, with such crimes accounting for more than half (167,000) of the scam complaints made to the Federal Trade Commission. Nearly 1,700 of the complaints involved Internet-based auctions.

MONK BUSINESS Those who believe that the prices charged on ink-jet and laser-printer cartridges are a sin now have a place to turn: www.lasermonks.com, a site that offers rock-bottom prices on products famous for steep mark-ups. And yes, they’re real monks. The site is run by the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, a Catholic monastery about 130 miles southeast of St. Paul, Minn. Beating the competition is easy, the Rev. Bernard McCoy, the brains behind the project, told the Duluth News Tribune. “The markup for black dust was just overwhelming.”

JUDGING BOOKS BY THEIR (BLOWN) COVERS The wonderful thing about Amazon.com is that you can see what other readers thought of a book before buying — or can you? “Masterful” and “page-turner” are among the accolades often bestowed by supposedly impartial, anonymous readers. But a computer glitch on Amazon’s Canadian Web site exposed the reviewers’ real names — and some turned out to be the books’ authors themselves. For instance, author John Rechy praised his book, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens, identifying himself as “a writer from Chicago,” reported The New York Times.

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