Chinese proposal to meter internet traffic
China wants to meter all internet traffic that passes through its borders, it has emerged. The move would require international agreement - but it is being discussed by the United Nations body in charge of internet standards. It would allow countries which currently receive no payment for use of their lines to generate income. But an EU cyber security expert has warned the plan could threaten the stability of the entire internet.
BBC News

Google's subsidiaries allow company to avoid £450m tax on UK advertising
Google, which has an estimated 90 per cent market share of UK internet searches, last year used a cross-border network of subsidiary companies to ensure it did not pay a penny in corporation tax on its £1.6bn advertising revenues in Britain. The international corporate structure enables Google to avoid paying what could otherwise have been a corporation tax bill in the UK of as much as £450m. Recently filed accounts for subsidiary company Google UK Limited show none of the search engine's advertising revenues from British customers were accounted for in the business, despite operations in London and Manchester incurring "administrative expenses" of £177m last year, including a wage bill of £70m.
The Guardian

Illegal file sharing still rife
Illegal file sharing levels are still not declining despite a recent crackdown by the government, according to new research from British recorded music industry body the BPI. The firm interviewed over 3,000 UK respondents aged 16-54 and 1,012 said they were downloading or filesharing music on peer-to-peer networks or from other web sources. While levels of illegal file sharing remained pretty much the same throughout 2009, the BPI warned of an increase in the use of web-based or “non-P2P” methods during the last six months. The biggest increases in use came from overseas unlicensed MP3 pay sites (47 per cent), newsgroups (42 per cent, MP3 search engines (28 per cent) and forum, blog and board links to cyberlockers (18 per cent).
V3

Heartland settles with Am Ex
The severe financial implications of suffering a data breach were highlighted this week as payment processing firm Heartland Payment Systems revealed it has reached a settlement agreement with American Express of nearly $4million. Heartland, the fifth largest payment processor in the United States, suffered a massive data breach in 2008 which it disclosed in January of this year, after hackers infiltrated its network. The firm has already revealed it has set aside a fund of over $12million to pay credit card companies compensation but the $3.6m settlement with American Express is the first specific agreement named.
V3

Intel updates Atom netbook processor range
Intel has launched a new Atom netbook processor, saying it will bring longer battery life and improved system performance to low-cost laptops. The single-core Atom N450 chip is 60 percent smaller than existing Atom processors, and consumes close to 20 percent less power, said Anil Nanduri, director of netbook marketing at Intel. The chip draws about 5.5 watts of power, said Intel. The small footprint of the chip could also lead to new device designs, like thinner netbooks and tablets, Nanduri said. Netbooks with N450 chips will be shown by major vendors at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas on 7 to 10 January.
Techworld

Mozilla rolls out latest Firefox beta
The Mozilla development community has rolled out the latest beta of its Firefox 3.6 browser. The move follows beta 4 just three weeks ago - the final code is scheduled to be released before the end of the year. In addition to the usual round of bug fixes, Firefox 3.6 beta version 5, comes with a number of new features and performance enhancements. The browser offers the ability for users to easily reskin the browsers with a new visual theme. The new version can also run scripts asynchronously, which should speed load times of pages that have multiple scripts.
Techworld

Vodafone to sell iPhone in UK from 14th January
Vodafone has confirmed that it will start selling the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in the UK from 14th January. The operator has started taking pre-orders today in-store and online, from both consumer and business customers. The cheapest way to get an iPhone through the operator will be to sign up to a £35 24-month contract for the iPhone 3G. The handset will be free, although being tied for two years to a phone that came out in mid-2008 is unappealing, to say the least. The iPhone 3GS 16GB will be free to customers signing up for a £45 tariff for 24 months, or a £50 for 18 months.
Mobile Entertainment

Greystripe says mobile ads 10-20x more effective than online
Mobile advertising firm Greystripe says it's been enjoying startling success with its partnership with online advertising company Tribal Fusion. The pair teamed up to offer a service for Tribal Fusion's clients that transcodes their web Flash ads into iPhone-friendly formats. More than 500 campaigns have made the leap in the last six months, and Greystripe claims they're getting higher CPM and clickthrough rates. Specifically, Greystripe says the iPhone ads are seeing 10-20x "higher performance" than the same online campaigns, with average click-through rates well above 1%.
Mobile Entertainment

e-borders could be illegal under EU law, say MPs
The UK's e-borders programme to gather information electronically on all travellers entering or leaving the UK will be illegal on intra-EU routes under the EU treaty, say MPs. And proposals to include new routes in the programme must be put on hold until concerns over legality and data protection issues are resolved, the home affairs committee said in a report today. Chairman of the Committee Rt Hon Keith Vaz said: "The programme is intended to cost the taxpayer £1.2bn and may be illegal. It is shocking that money has already been spent on a programme which could never be implemented."
Computing