Stacey Vanek Smith

The ubiquitous, but innocuous "Like" button on your favorite retail and media websites is a boon for marketers. Just one click and they access to a full range of your personal details -- and your friends' too.

If it seems like this new TV season is splashier and more star-studded than usually -- it's probably because it is. Networks are bringing out the big guns to combat DVRs and Internet television.

Like any marriage, the merger between the two airline giants has qualities that complements the others. But also like any marriage, economists predict some tough talks will be had to settle issues such as a pilots' pay.

Cocoa beans to corn, commodity prices are on the rise. This is good news for investors who are looking for another place to put their money instead of the stock markets. But it's bad news for companies, particularly small businesses, who need to figure out how to balance costs and profits.

Welcome to our Consumer Profiler, a new application on Marketplace.org that lets you identify your consumer lifestyle category!

Google realized people type much slower than they read, so they created Google Instant. Using information collected on you, Google Instant shows results -- as you search -- instantly.

People may be cutting back in a lot of areas, but political spending isn't one of them. Congressional and gubernatorial candidates are setting fundraising records this year. Corporate America is certainly giving its share, but not in a straightforward way. Stacey Vanek-Smith explains.

Verizon introduced pay-as-you-go plans for many of the smartphones it offers. With the high cost of smartphone plans, Verizon may open itself to a new market with its lower cost deals.

In part two of our series on data mining, Marketplace's Stacey Vanek Smith visits a data mining company and sees what they know about her through her credit card transactions, Facebook account... It's a lot.

Every time you swipe one a rewards card at a store, that data goes somewhere to get analyzed. Marketplace's Stacey Vanek-Smith takes a look at the multi-billion dollar data mining industry -- how it has evolved and where it will go.