In what the Twittering classes have universally seen as a retrograde step, Sky News introduced a new social media policy on Tuesday, which includes an effective ban on its journalists retweeting non-Sky sources, writes Ben Fenton.
I haven’t seen the email myself, but I am confident from several sources that the offending sentence runs like this: “Do not re-tweet information posted by other journalists or people on Twitter”.
Apple threatens to boot developers that game the App Store
Ever looked at the iPhone App Store’s list of most popular apps and thought, how did that get so popular?
Apple has been asking the same question – and it has found that not all are quite as popular as they seem. This week it posted a stern warning to developers to stop using shady marketing firms that can artificially drive their apps to the top of the charts.
Samsung, Instagram and Twitter score at Super Bowl
Tech news from around the web, Super Bowl edition:
Although automotive companies were the most prolific advertisers during Sunday’s Super Bowl, many of the $7m-a-minute spots also involved tech companies – large and small.
WikiLeaks could set servers afloat, Fox News reports
Tech news from around the web:
WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, is investigating the possibility of taking its hosting infrastructure offshore to avoid the long arm of the law, reports Fox News. The suggestion is that this would be more than just an island out of the reach of the taxman – WikiLeaks has explored floating its infrastructure on a barge in international waters, Fox claims. Julian Assange is in London’s supreme court this week fighting his extradition to Sweden, while a new legal challenge has also emerged from FSI, his former lawyers, who accuse the WikiLeaks founder of failing to pay his legal fees.
Gov.uk launches one UK government website to rule them all
The first major product of sweeping changes to how the government handles its internal IT systems and public-facing websites is to be unveiled on Wednesday, as a new unified website for online public services goes live for testing.
A new single government domain, at www.gov.uk, will replace Directgov, the portal which launched in 2004, before extending across Whitehall departments’ sites in the coming weeks.
Megaupload users could soon lose all their files
Tech news from around the web:
People who used Megaupload to store files – legitimate or otherwise – could soon find their data has been deleted altogether, reports the WSJ. Federal prosecutors bringing a huge criminal copyright infringement action against the file-sharing site have written to the Virginia judge overseeing the case, saying: “It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012.”
Internet companies dominate EU fundraising in January
Online shopping and renting out spare capacity in flats and cars appeared to be the investment themes in Europe in January, with consumer-facing internet companies once again getting the majority of the money and attention.
Berlin was the fundraising hot-spot with at least four start-ups raising money, from $50m for SoundCloud to a more modest $1.4m for Gidsy.
This is the first of a series of monthly updates on the early-stage technology companies raising money in Europe.
Facebook’s stock market launch is biggest test yet for the social network phenomenon. Can the young company, whose rapid expansion has often struck jarring notes over issues such as user privacy, live up to the huge expectations that could peg its valuation as high as $100bn? April Dembosky investigates as Facebook hurtles towards 1bn users.
Google clashes with British MPs over takedown policy
Google was dragged over the coals by a British parliamentary committee on Monday afternoon, as the technology company’s approach to removing illegal content from its search results again came under scrutiny.
Kim Dotcom actually owns kim.com
A week on from his spectacular arrest, fascination with Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom shows no sign of abating.
One nugget which hasn’t yet been noted: the German-born hacker does actually own the domain name kim.com.
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