Joseph Menn reports in the Los Angeles Times about frustrations that many users have with trying to use the Internet.

Stephen Seemayer had the first Pong video game system on his block. A decade later, the Echo Park artist was the first of his neighbors to get a personal computer. And in 1996, he was so inspired by the World Wide Web that he created a series of small paintings for viewing over the Internet.

Now the 50-year-old Seemayer is once again on the cutting edge: Sick of spam clogging his inbox and spyware and viruses crashing his system, Seemayer yanked out his high-speed connection.

"I'm not going to pay for something that I can't use," he said.

The Payments Cards Center of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank has posted updated information on two recent conferences held by the Center: Forum on Validation of Consumer Credit-Risk Models and Assessing the Impact of Electronic Benefits Transfer.

The Tower Group has announced the release of a new study of private label merchant card programs.

For years, private label credit card portfolios were the tightly guarded assets of U.S. retailers and oil companies. But recent shifts in the consumer credit landscape are driving even the largest in-house issuers of private label credit cards to either outsource their card businesses or sell them outright. Fueling this move are factors including competition from general-purpose credit cards, an increase in the volume of bad loans (or chargeoffs) and margin pressures.

Kathleen McLaughlin reports in the Christian Science Monitor on the expansion of consumer credit options by the banks in China.

Credit cards are fast gaining acceptance, accounting for 10 percent of all transactions in 2003, and usage, with 1 million Chinese cardholders, and the numbers growing every month, according to the central bank.

Discover Financial Services and the Pulse EFT Association have announced the completion of their merger following approval by Pulse's financial institution members.

LakeWest Group has released the results of its sixth annual Point-of-Sale Benchmarking Survey of top 100 specialty retailers.

This year respondents identified their top priorities as increased customer flow-through, better customer information gathering, hardware replacement, improved store labor management, and seamless channel integration.

"Customer service continues to be the key priority for retailers as they focus on gaining a better understanding of their customer, improving inventory management, and more effectively managing store personnel," said Robert Antall, CEO of LakeWest Group. "As retailers look to differentiate their offering, they are addressing areas such as channel integration, customer purchasing patterns across channels, and providing special order options to the customer."