Several Internet stocks are taking some heat this morning following the release yesterday of a Senate report on aggressive sales tactics on the Web–and in particular singling out for scorn a practice known as “post-transaction marketing.”

The report, issued by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, asserts that three Connecticut-based direct marketing companies–Affinion (which is owned by Apollo Management), Vertrue (which is owned by investors One Equity Partners, Rho Ventures and Brencourt Advisors as well as members of management) and Webloyalty–and their e-commerce partners have together raked in over $1.4 billion in revenue “by using aggressive tactics to charge Internet shoppers for club membership programs.”

These guys are responsible for the stream of offers you get for trials in membership clubs, “cash back,” and other services when you are buying movie tickets, airline tickets, flowers or others goods on the Web.

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Depending on whom you ask, U.S. online shopping is either in unprecedented decline–or one of the only bright spots in American retail.

On Thursday, comScore (SCOR) reported that U.S. online spending in the third quarter slipped two percent to $29.6 billion versus last year. That represents the first time since comScore began tracking the figures that online spending has shrunk for two quarters in a row. (Online shopping was flat in the first quarter, and slipped one percent in the second quarter.) ComScore was slightly more upbeat about the potential of growth in the fourth quarter, if only because we’ll be comparing it to last year’s dismal fourth quarter.

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Amazon.com (AMZN) has ended a trial program to sell wine online, the company confirmed.

The wine sales pilot, which the e-commerce giant launched last year, was intended to sell wine from California’s Napa Valley and other U.S. regions.

An Amazon spokesman declined to give details about why the company ended the program.

The end of the program may have been related to financial troubles at partner New Vine Logistics, which had been tapped to handle shipments for Amazon. Over the summer, that company suspended operations amid financial problems, but then later got new investment from Inertia Beverage Group.

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Akamai (AKAM) is losing deals in an attempt to hold the line on content delivery network pricing, according to Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko, who late yesterday cut his rating on the stock to Sell from Hold.

Fetyko asserts that Akamai’s CDN pricing “remains way out of line”–30-100 percent higher–compared to its largest competitors, Limelight (LLNW) and Level 3 (LVLT). He contends the high prices are resulting in lost deals, including two large e-commerce customers recently. Fetyko writes in a research note that Limelight is picking up market share, “and is expected to make a couple of meaningful announcements” on new customers shortly.

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Blue Nile Inc. (NILE) is expected to unveil a major overhaul of its Web site Tuesday as the online jeweler tries to broaden its appeal, especially to women. But like other e-commerce sites retooling to combat slowing growth, it faces the tricky task of trying to make improvements without losing core customers.

The vast majority of those who buy rings and necklaces from Blue Nile are men, drawn to the extra information and control–as well as possible discounts–they get by shopping online instead of at a high-pressure jewelry counter. Yet most Blue Nile purchases are given to women, whom the retailer would like to have a more premium view of its brand.

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Alibaba Group’s restructuring of its China Yahoo business, which strips out a classified listings operation added to the site last year, marks yet another setback for China Yahoo since its high-profile tie-up with the Chinese e-commerce giant four years ago.

Alibaba said Friday it would separate Koubei.com, a classified-listings Web site, from China Yahoo and inject Koubei into its rapidly expanding retail Web site, Taobao.com. The Koubei listings service was merged with China Yahoo in June 2008, one of several moves to revamp the site since Alibaba took over Yahoo Inc.’s (YHOO) China operations.

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Target’s (TGT) decision today to build out its e-commerce infrastructure won’t likely hurt Amazon.com (AMZN), writes J.P. Morgan (JPM) analyst Imran Khan in a note to clients. In fact, it could help.

Target announced today it would construct its own order-fulfillment services for its online sales, which totaled $1.8 billion last year, according to Khan’s estimate, signalling the end of its use of Amazon’s back-office fulfillment services, for which Amazon receives a fee.

“To deliver a customized multi-channel experience for Target’s guests, we believe it is in Target’s best interest going forward to assume full control over the design and management of Target’s e-commerce technology platform, fulfillment and guest services operations,” said Target president Steve Eastman in a prepared statement.

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Memo to Twitter: If you’re really going to be making money with sponsored direct messages, as a New York Times (NYT) article hints, please make sure it doesn’t get annoying.

Twitter investor Todd Chaffee of Institutional Venture Partners told the Times that “e-commerce, including links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms, is a likely revenue stream for Twitter.” That’s not too surprising.

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Amazon.com (AMZN) is absolutely on fire. The company posted Q1 results that blew away estimates, with EPS of 41 cents a dime ahead of the Street, as both gross margins and operating margin expanded in the face of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Not only are consumers continuing to migrate shopping to online from offline, but Amazon continues to gobble up share: Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker notes that Amazon’s U.S. business has grown at least 18 percentage points faster than overall e-commerce for eight consecutive quarters. Throw in better-than-expected demand for the Kindle–annoyingly, the company won’t give any specific data on sales of the device–and you have a recipe for an investor lovefest.

And when I say the stock is on fire, I don’t just mean today. AMZN is up about 67 percent year to date, and a whopping 145 percent since the stock’s November low.

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In the past week, eBay Inc. (EBAY) chief executive John Donahoe has taken steps to divest two businesses, acquire another, and revamp his company’s core e-commerce website.

During a call with investors Thursday morning, Donahoe said he thinks an initial public offering for eBay’s Internet-phone unit Skype will best “maximize value,” but he would be open to an unsolicited offer from another company to buy it outright. And he said that an agreement to purchase leading South Korean e-commerce company Gmarket Inc. will help the company grow not only in that market, but also serve as a platform to expand in Asian markets such as Japan, which eBay exited in 2002.

In a subsequent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Donahoe discussed the reasons for the hectic activity–-even during a week while he’s been on vacation–-and the forces behind a transformation plan he expects to take three to four years.

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EBay (EBAY) unveiled some long-promised changes to its e-commerce site on Tuesday. Some of the most vocal eBay sellers are giving the changes tepid applause–but still complain eBay isn’t addressing a more fundamental problem for buyers with the fees it charges.

The company says it will tweak its user interface by adding features such as “Smart FAQs” from buyers to cut down on the number of repeat questions from buyers. Seller Tony Madalone, who runs an eBay t-shirt shop called Vintage Classic Threads, likes the new tools for package-tracking and label-printing that eBay is building into the site. “I always thought that it could be changed to be more user-friendly and allow sellers to be more efficient,” he said.

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One online retailer to rule them all.

Amazon.com (AMZN) could be responsible for close to a third of all U.S. e-commerce transactions, RBC Capital analyst Stephen Ju asserted in a research note this morning. Ju notes that Amazon’s reported revenues consist of a mix of gross revenues from its own businesses plus net third-party commissions. To date, he notes, Amazon has not given a breakdown of the two numbers, other than as a percentage of units shipped. The question, he says, is how much third-party gross merchandise value is flowing through Amazon’s platform–and what slice of all e-commerce Amazon is actually facilitating.

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Shopping on cellphones–long a dream among e-commerce companies–is not yet a mass-market phenomenon. But some new tools could help change that picture.

Amazon.com (AMZN) Thursday unveiled free software for BlackBerry handsets (trackball models only, please), that allow users to browse for products, read reviews, and buy on the go–just like a version for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone that came out in December.

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An eight-year-old from Asheville, N.C., found that there are limits to where you can sell Girl Scout cookies. Her dream of selling 12,000 boxes to send her entire troop to summer camp has been dashed by a technicality that’s left people scratching their heads.

Earlier this year, Wild Freeborn (yes, that’s her real name) posted a YouTube video, with the help of her dad, with an enthusiastic pitch: “Buy cookies! And they’re yummy!” They set up an online order system where customers in their area could purchase Tagalongs, Thin Mints and Samoas. Within two weeks, 700 orders came in.

But Miss Freeborn’s e-commerce plan hit a major snag. The Girl Scout Cookie Program, which according to Newsweek “bills itself as the largest program to teach entrepreneurship to young girls,” says it prohibits all online sales of its cookies — primarily because of safety reasons. Its guidelines state that Internet use should only be for advertising.

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At a time when most companies aren’t willing to offer guidance on the March quarter, eBay (EBAY) is laying out its vision for 2011.

And what it sees is a big opportunity for PayPal.

In connection with the company’s analyst meeting today, eBay said its growth will be driven by its two core businesses: PayPal and e-commerce. In something of a repositioning, the company says that PayPal “has become a second core business,” with an opportunity to become even bigger than eBay Marketplaces.

CEO John Donahoe said in a statement that the company expects PayPal to become “the next leading online global payments network” and that PayPal is “one of the most exciting and high-potential opportunities anywhere online today.” That’s important, because the company isn’t really expecting to see any growth from the Marketplaces business, which has been shrinking in recent quarters.

Meanwhile, he said the company is “aggressively remaking and transforming” the Marketplaces business.

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