Realtors are fighting back against the idea that consumers might be able to use the Internet to bypass them.

The National Association of Realtors announced Monday a plan to give more data to real estate agents eager to show they can still provide valuable information at a time when more and more home shoppers rely on the Internet to bone up on the market.

The trade organization said it has acquired licenses for property-related data and related technology from Lender Processing Services Inc., or LPS. Terms weren’t disclosed, but NAR officials said in a presentation to members last week that they were investing $12 million in assets from LPS and its Cyberhomes unit.

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Security-software maker Symantec Corp.’s (SYMC) quarterly profit rose 19 percent as higher margins and strong sales of its Norton computer-security tools to consumers stemmed revenue declines in its corporate business.

Although the company said it is seeing continuing caution among corporate buyers, it has stemmed some of the sharp declines it reported in the previous quarter. Executives also flagged an increase in the number of large-sized deals, and evidence that the company is beginning to reverse some market share losses in its corporate security business.

“We are encouraged by signs of stabilization in the markets we serve and are confident that we will continue to see gradual improvement over the next few quarters,” said Chief Executive Enrique Salem.

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A recent shift in merchandising strategy by the world’s largest retailer spells more trouble for DVD sales and the entertainment industry that depends on them for profits.

As part of a larger effort to clean up its aisles and appeal to higher-end shoppers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is doing away with display cases to promote the latest hot movie titles.

The move comes as major film studios are reeling from declines in revenue from DVD sales as cash-strapped consumers turn to low-cost rental services and digital downloads for home movies.

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The Web can be a mean-spirited place. But when it comes to online reviews, the Internet is a village where the books are strong, YouTube clips are good-looking and the dog food is above average.

One of the Web’s little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five.

People like Jonas Luster aim to introduce a little negativity. A private chef, Mr. Luster recently beckoned fellow San Francisco area diners to “quit with the nicey-nicey” in a blog post titled “In Defense of Negative Reviews.” His own average rating on restaurant-review sites is 3.6. He even awarded celebrity chef Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse restaurant a 1-star rating after he felt he had been served an overdone duck.

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Consumers are helping pull the technology sector out of one of its worst-ever slumps, and optimism is building that businesses may also start switching on their spending soon.

That upbeat picture emerged as some bellwether technology suppliers issued numbers that were stronger than Wall Street expected, though still reflecting the recession’s harsh effects. Their announcements point to improved demand for products such as laptop computers and flat-panel televisions–particularly in Asia, where the Chinese government’s stimulus spending appears to be sparking sales.

The latest evidence came from Intel Corp. (INTC), which supplies the chips that serve as electronic brains in PCs. On Friday, the Silicon Valley giant–which earlier this year pointed to signs of recovery–boosted its third-quarter revenue forecast by 6 percent.

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Freaking out about the easier opt-outs proposed by some online-privacy advocates? Maybe you don’t have so much to worry about.

In June, Fetchback, an advertising network that specializes in ad “retargeting,” added a link within its ad units that, when clicked, took consumers to a page that explained who the advertiser was and how the ad got there and gave contact info for Fetchback, as well as a way to opt out of future targeting.

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TiVo (TIVO) this morning announced a multi-part deal with Best Buy (BBY) that includes the development of a special version of the TiVo player that would include specialized content–oh, okay, advertising–from the electronics retailer.

Or as the release puts it: “Best Buy intends to utilize TiVo’s robust platform to deliver educational and marketing messages directly to consumers.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court today cleared the way for Cablevision (CVC) to offer a network DVR service, allowing consumers to record copies of television programming “in the cloud,” rather than on set-top boxes.

Without comment, the court refused to review a Court of Appeals ruling that rejected claims by film studios and television networks that the network DVR approach would infringe copyrights.

Cablevision first announced plans for the service in 2006, but it has been tied up in litigation–until now. Among the companies opposed to the concept were Time Warner (TWX), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS).

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RealNetworks (RNWK) is upping the ante in litigation seeking to prevent it from distributing DVD-copying software. The company argues the Hollywood studios are a “price-fixing cartel” that have no right to prevent consumers from duplicating the movie discs.

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Consumers still aren’t buying gadgets.

The latest Commerce Department retail sales data, which showed a disappointing 0.4 percent fall overall in April from March, includes a 2.8 percent drop in sales at electronics and appliance stores, which is worse than any other individual category. Sales were down 12 percent on a year-over-year basis. In March, sales were down 7.8 percent sequentially for electronics stores, and 8.8 percent year over year.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the 0.4 percent drop was substantially worse than the Street expectations for a 0.1 percent rise in retail sales over the previous month.

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Prepaid wireless carriers have gotten a lot of attention in recent months because of the ailing economy, which has helped them as consumers seek out cheaper cellphone plans.

Now that most of the biggest ones in the U.S. have reported their first quarter results, how did they perform? We looked at six–Boost Mobile, Sprint’s (S) prepaid unit; Leap Wireless (LEAP); MetroPCS (PCS); T-Mobile; Tracfone, the U.S. prepaid unit of America Movil; and Virgin Mobile USA (VM), which posted earnings earlier today.

Of those, Tracfone remains the biggest in terms of subscribers, ending the first quarter with 11.8 million. MetroPCS and Boost added the most net new subscribers, gaining about 684,000 and 674,000, respectively.

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There are some novel techie elements to Intel’s (INTC) new “Sponsors of Tomorrow” ad campaign, which the Journal covered in an article Tuesday. For example, next Monday a digital billboard in Times Square will display messages from texters at the New York intersection and those in other locations, including Berlin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami, where other digital storefront displays will be “linked for a multi-site, international texting experience,” as the company puts it.

But the real experiment will be to see if consumers warm to Intel’s attempts to make light about its own culture.

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Greystripe, an ad network for mobile applications and games, has a new report showing how consumers are using free iPhone applications.

Among the interesting findings:

• People use free apps an average of 20 times before getting bored and looking for something else.
• The average time they spend using/playing with the apps is 9.6 minutes.
• So-called “tailgate” ads, which are short flash videos or games users interact with before an app launches, are keeping people’s attention for about 22 seconds–a positive development in the fledgling mobile ad space.

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Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes makes saving music from CDs onto one’s personal computer a simple process, but doing the same with a DVD is much more complicated endeavor. Most DVDs are encoded with digital rights management technology to prevent copying.

Most DVD viewers think that’s hypocrisy. A study of 1,000 consumers conducted by the National Consumers League found that 90 percent think that they should have ability to back up DVDs on their personal computers in the same way they are able to do with music from a CD.

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Basketball fans, beware.

Hackers are taking advantage of bracket-related Web surfing and initiating some madness of their own, with tactics as sneaky as spreading malicious software through March Madness blog posts.

Online security company Websense discovered two March Madness-related malware scams earlier this week, one in the form of URLs posted in blog comments that took users to a phony anti-virus scanning site, and another as a search engine optimization scam that infected basketball-related terms and pushed them to the top in Google (GOOG).

It’s a clever and common tactic, particularly for an event like the NCAA tournament, which has fans checking sports sites, blogs and mobile devices for updates on their favorite teams. Websense’s chief technology officer, Dan Hubbard, says that hackers try to capitalize on popular events or stories on the Internet, whether it’s a major athletic event such as the Olympics, the recent presidential election, or a celebrity breakup that drives Web traffic. Users need to be wary of links to fake anti-virus scanners that urge installation. “Just because something comes up on your screen and tells you to install it doesn’t mean you have to actually do it,” he says. “That’s a really hard message to get across to the consumers.”

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