A number of Microsoft employees have urged their employer not to put in a bid for a massive cloud contract with the US Department of Defence, saying they had joined the software giant in the expectation that technologies they built would not cause harm or human suffering.

As an increasing number of stories surface about perceived transgressions of search kingpin Google, the privacy-focused Internet search engine DuckDuckGo has achieved a high of 30 million search queries a day recently, the company behind it says.

The lack of judicial oversight in the Federal Government's draft encryption bill, of those issuing notices for companies to comply with changes that decrypt data, will ensure that abuse of power is the order of the day, the Australian Lawyers Alliance says.

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who has been taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than six years, will have his communications with the external world partly restored following talks held between UN officials and the Ecuador Government.

The ACCC chair Rod Sims says the competition regulator is well placed to take enforcement action on data issues, but has warned of the possibility of a reduction in competition in some instances in “fast moving” digital markets.

The Australian Labor Party is keeping open the option of writing down the value of the national broadband network if it were to win the next federal election, according to Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.

And of course, there's plenty more so for all the news visit www.itwire.com.

Have a great day!

Stan Beer, Editor in Chief, iTWire

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