Business: Tourist spot unfriendly to travel sites

The Ozarks tourist town of Branson is suing 15 Internet travel companies, including Travelocity and Expedia, claiming unpaid back taxes on hotel room bookings. Branson s lawsuit, filed in Greene County (Mo.) Circuit Court last week, alleges the travel services either failed to collect or remit a 4 percent hotel room tax.

The litigation follows similar legal efforts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago and elsewhere, where officials have alleged that online travel services charged customers for local tourism taxes but never remitted those funds. The Philadelphia and Atlanta lawsuits have since been dismissed, according to the industry group Interactive Travel Services Association.
U.

S. album sales continued to decline in 2006, down nearly 5 percent from the previous year, but total music sales were up thanks to a huge increase in digital downloads. Year-end sales figures released Thursday by Nielsen SoundScan said 588.

2-million albums were sold in 2006 - a 4.9 percent decline from 2005. But digital track sales increased by 65 percent over the previous year, with 582-million tracks sold, and digital album sales more than doubled, with nearly 33-million sold last year.

The top-selling album of the year was the soundtrack from the Disney Channel movie High School Musical, which sold more than 3.7-million copies.
Want some shoes with that book?

Amazon.com Inc. has launched a Web site catering to those passionate about buying handbags and shoes, marking the first time the Internet shopping powerhouse has launched a new online brand.

Amazon.com quietly started testing Endless.com on Dec.

11, featuring 250 brands and 15,000 styles and dangling an unusual offer in the online world: free overnight shipping.
Cingular Wireless is raising the text messaging rate for customers without a monthly texting plan to 15 cents per message sent or received, an increase of 5 cents. The increase comes two months after an identical move by Sprint Nextel Corp.

, which also raised the rate for pay-as-you-go texting to 15 cents per message from 10 cents. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA each charge 10 cents per message sent or received without a texting plan. The change in Cingular s pricing takes effect on Jan.

21.