August 2011

An Australian official has described as "incredibly irresponsible" Wikileaks' release of a US cable that appears to name Australian terror suspects. The cable was among more than 130,000 confidential US cables released by the whistle-blowing group, many of which did not remove the names of sources. Such information has previously been redacted in Wikileaks releases. The group has denied that any sources were exposed or that there were any mistakes in the data release.

Australia's competition regulator voiced objections to the terms of the proposed split of dominant phone company Telstra Corp, threatening to delay an historic reform designed to wire up the entire nation to high-speed broadband.

The news knocked Telstra shares down 2.6 percent at A$2.99, after touching a low of A$2.92, down 4.9 percent. Telstra recently hammered out an agreement to hand over its fixed-line telecoms infrastructure, including cable ducts, to a state-run company for use in the government's $38 billion project to build a high-speed national broadband network. But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said Telstra's separation plan could not go ahead in its current form and called for important changes. Analysts said the watchdog's concerns would probably only mean a bump in the road to getting the deal done.

Viewers of Big Brother who wish to expel irritating housemates from the fly-on-the-wall documentary will soon be able to do so by placing their votes on Facebook, in the latest sign of how live television is being complemented by social media.

Producer Endemol is using Facebook’s Credits system of micropayments, from which the social network takes a 30 per cent commission, alongside traditional phone and text-message voting. For Facebook, the deal will provide a welcome boost to its virtual currency as it moves away from buying in-game “virtual items”, such as tractors in Zynga’s Farmville, towards other digital goods. The BBC has started selling episodes of programmes such as Top Gear and Doctor Who through Facebook Credits, for watching on the site, alongside similar experiments from film studios such as Warner Bros and Miramax. Endemol said that voting through Facebook is expected to come to this series of Big Brother on Channel 5 in the UK but the final details, such as pricing, have not yet been confirmed.

A top Chinese communist party official has urged the country's Internet companies to firmly put an end to the spread of fake and harmful information, a statement that appears to be a warning to one of China's most popular Twitter-like websites.

Liu Qi, a member of China's politburo and party secretary of Beijing, made the comment on Tuesday as he visited the Chinese Internet firm Sina, according to state media reports. Liu praised the company for its achievements with Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging platform with 200 million registered users. But he also urged China's Internet firms to improve the management and application of new technology, while working to stamp out harmful information over the Web. He also called on China's microblog users to be responsible and counter the spread of fake information.