The green product database includes various items such as baby monitors, cell phones, plasma TVs and eco-friendly accessories.

The project is financed through online advertising, sponsoring, and premium entries for companies and a product database.

Larger businesses may want more memory for custom applications like technical manuals or product databases.

Downloading information costs between 75 cents and € 2.50 for detailed investigation results, and a maximum of € 5 for comprehensive product databases.

A little over a year ago, Amazon provided outside programmers with a free interface for interacting with its vast product database.

The product database offers browse, search and compare features.

Database testing mainly takes place at this layer and involves testing strategies such as quality control and quality assurance of the product databases.

The Verge hosts a product database which allows readers to compare product specifications and research product availability.

Mr. Davis predicts that the product database will dwarf those of other comparison shopping sites and give the company an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

He said the company would concentrate on licensing its product database and "scale down our costly consumer operations."