By Peter Lucas   Spam e-mail may be a constant irritant to consumers, but it’s big business for merchant acquirers willing to settle transactions resulting from those unsolicited ads. Can anything be done to stop it?       Every day some unsuspecting consumer receives an unsolicited e-mail from …

  n While the development appears to give Isis a leg up on Google Inc., whose NFC initiative has so far been limited to a specific handset model from Samsung, observers point out that the mobile-operator joint venture is lagging behind in other respects. For example, Google recently announced the …

  n The San Francisco-based company, which is aiming its product at developers, in June released an iOS version for Apple Inc. devices. It says the software is now active on 80 applications, with another 750 having registered but not yet gone live. “Getting such a wide variety of apps …

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  n With an over-the-air update, users of the Nexus S 4G smart phone on the Sprint Nextel network are now able to use the Google Wallet to make purchases at any of the 144,000 U.S. merchant locations that accept contactless payments. For the time being, the Google application can …

  n A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Washington, D.C., has found that about 20% of U.S. adults uses a smart phone to access a location-based service or a so-called geo-social site, or a social network in which the user “checks in” with his or …

  While point-of-sale payments using near-field communication (NFC) technology appear to be drawing closer, systems that let consumers make mobile payments in stores without NFC are drawing investor interest. This week, Mobibucks, a Louisville, Ky.-based startup, announced a $5 million Series A funding round led by Acadia Woods Partners. The …

  n Intuit announced late on Monday that it had acquired the mobile Web platform developed by San Mateo, Calif.-based MMV, a joint venture formed in 2008 by Citigroup Inc. and SK Telecom, a major South Korean telecommunications company, to offer mobile-banking capability worldwide. Intuit, which had been licensing the …

  Visa Inc. on Thursday cemented into place two more pieces of a developing strategy for what is rapidly turning into a hotly competitive market for mobile payments. The world’s largest card network announced it had struck an agreement with Monitise PLC, a U.K.-based provider of mobile services for financial …

Google Inc.’s entry in mobile payments and marketing, which the online search titan unveiled last Thursday, swept many observers off their feet with its comprehensive roundup of key players but also left a number of crucial questions unanswered. Experts agree, though, that the uncertainty swirling around these questions only underscores …