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AP – The government’s decisions about whether or how to bring criminal charges against participants in the WikiLeaks disclosures are complicated by the very newness of Julian Assange’s Internet-based outfit: Is it journalism or espionage or something in between?

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Reuters – Google Inc is reportedly closing in on a deal to buy online discount-coupon sensation Groupon for up to $6 billion in its largest-ever acquisition, signaling a willingness to use some of its huge cash hoard to buy growth.

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AP – European regulators are tackling a puzzle that could shift the balance of power on the Internet: Is Google stifling competition by juicing its search results to favor its services over its rivals?

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Reuters – EU regulators opened a formal investigation into Google on Tuesday, putting pressure on the world’s top Internet search engine to offer concessions to settle antitrust complaints and avert a lengthy battle like Microsoft.

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AFP – Motorola on Tuesday announced it will split in January into two companies, one focusing on cellphones and Internet and the other on professional equipment, in a bid to boost its performance.

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PC World – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has taken the first steps toward reallocating spectrum controlled by television stations to mobile broadband services.

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Reuters – Consumers heeded the call of online retailers on Cyber Monday, ringing up double-digit sales growth on that key e-commerce holiday shopping day, according to data released on Tuesday.

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PC World – Nothing conjures up images of smoking jackets, pipe aroma, and silicone implants quite like Playboy–which, like every other print magazine, is struggling to stay relevant in the Internet era. Well, Hef and Co. have come up with a revenue booster just in time for the stocking-stuffer season: 56 years of Playboy on a 250GB hard drive.

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NewsFactor – The fight for Net neutrality now has a practical case that could affect the future of streaming media on the web. Comcast is requiring that a major Internet service provider pay an additional fee for delivering Netflix’s streaming movies.

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Reuters – “Jackass 3.5″ will premiere online in March 2011.

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Reuters – Google Inc, whose technology helped make sense of the Web’s vast trove of data, now faces an equally daunting task: spending its growing cash hoard wisely.

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PC World – Google would be overspending if it paid north of US$5 billion to acquire online coupon provider Groupon, according to various industry analysts.

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AFP – Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who left the social network to work on the online arm of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, launched a new venture on Tuesday to promote charitable causes.

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AFP – Europe launched a full-frontal attack on Internet king Google Tuesday, formally opening an antitrust probe after rivals accused the Silicon Valley giant of rigging the online search market.

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AFP – Internet search giant Google is close to a deal to buy online discount shopping site Groupon for as much as six billion dollars, The New York Times and a leading technology blog reported.

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Reuters – Level 3 Communications Inc, which helps companies like online rental company Netflix Inc stream videos to consumers, stepped up its attack on U.S. cable provider Comcast Corp for demanding a fee for some bandwidth-heavy video traffic.

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NewsFactor – The European Commission opened an investigation into Google on Tuesday. Europe’s top antitrust regulator is exploring allegations that the search giant abused its market-leading position in online search, violating European Union rules.

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Reuters – Home improvement chain Lowe’s Cos laid out a plan to step up its online business as more do-it-yourselfers take the online route to research and buy new home products.

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AP – iTunes’ top 10 selling singles and albums of the week ending Nov. 29, 2010:

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Reuters – Britain’s Telegraph newspaper said it had made no decision on whether to charge for reading its news online, after a Financial Times report said it was drawing up plans to put up a so-called paywall next year.

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AP – Level 3 Communications Inc., an Internet backbone company that supports Netflix Inc.’s increasingly popular movie streaming service, complained Monday that cable giant Comcast Corp. is charging it an unfair fee for the right to send data to its subscribers.

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AFP – Former US president George W. Bush bashed WikiLeaks on Monday in a wide-ranging chat streamed live online at Facebook as part of a promotion tour for his memoir “Decision Points.”

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Reuters – Twentieth Century Fox is taking aggressive steps to keep its movie and TV scripts off the Internet.

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AP – Striking back, the Obama administration branded the WikiLeaks release of more than a quarter-million sensitive files an attack on the United States Monday and raised the prospect of criminal prosecutions in connection with the exposure. The Pentagon detailed new security safeguards, including restraints on small computer flash drives, to make it harder for any one person to copy and reveal so many secrets.

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AFP – The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by luxury retailer Tiffany of a ruling that eBay cannot be held liable for trademark infringement for counterfeit items sold through its site.

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AP – On one of the year’s busiest Internet shopping days, federal law enforcement announced a crackdown that blocked 82 domain names of far-flung commercial websites to keep them from peddling counterfeit merchandise and illegal copies of music and software.

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PC World – First, the obvious: Cyber Monday is little more than a huckster’s ploy to spur holiday shoppers to avoid the inevitable. Purportedly the online equivalent of Black Friday–albeit without the frostbite, fisticuffs, and 911 calls of its brick-and-mortar sibling–Cyber Monday has little meaning, considering most Black Friday (and pre-Black Friday) deals are available online as well.

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Reuters – Retailers from Amazon.com Inc to Target Corp offered steep online discounts to shoppers on Cyber Monday, aiming to win additional sales after a strong start to the holiday shopping season over the weekend.

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Reuters – Netflix Inc network partner Level 3 Communications said it will resist efforts by Comcast Corp to force it to pay fees for delivering online movies to Comcast customers.

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NewsFactor – Eager to break into lucrative web-based pay TV, Microsoft has held discussions with television networks and other media companies about developing a system to stream programs via its devices and software, company sources have told Reuters. The new venture would compete with Google TV, Apple TV, and Netflix, which already stream TV shows and movies.

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AP – The Obama administration moved forcefully Monday to contain damage from the release of more than a quarter-million classified diplomatic files, branding the action as an attack on the United States and raising the prospect of legal action against online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.

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Reuters – Microsoft Corp is about to jump back into the TV game. Only this time, it may aim at cable, satellite and phone companies.

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NewsFactor – E-commerce is exploding in the early days of the holiday shopping season — and that’s before Cyber Monday. Add to that the record number of Americans who plan to shop online for one-day-only deals and free shipping, and it looks like retailers have reason to celebrate.

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PC World – The people behind the Opera mobile Web browser have released the results of their State of the Mobile Web survey, which questioned 300,000 users in July and August this year. It makes for fascinating reading.

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Reuters – The Supreme Court said on Monday that it rejected an appeal by Tiffany & Co arguing that eBay Inc should be held liable for trademark infringement for selling counterfeit goods on its website.

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NewsFactor – Did Google by Groupon on the eve of Cyber Monday? That’s the story the rumor mills are churning. Benchmark Capital led the charge with a report that the search giant snapped up the coupon king during the weekend in a $2.5 billion deal.

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Reuters – Law enforcement officials said on Monday they had shut down 82 websites selling thousands of counterfeit and pirated goods in a move timed with the start of the online holiday shopping season.

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NewsFactor – Heading into the holiday season, there’s some sorta-good news and some not-so-good news for Microsoft on the new Windows Phone 7 handsets. The not-so-good news includes a report by a United Kingdom-based online retailer that Android phones are outselling Phone 7 devices 15 to 1.

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Macworld – If Black Friday got its name as the day retailers’ balance sheets get in the black (and out of the red), then Cyber Monday must be the day they get to…nope, I got nothing. Whatever you want to call the day that Internet holiday shopping supposedly kicks off, Apple has given you a few more reasons to join the fray.

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AP – The Justice Department will prosecute anyone found to have violated U.S. law in the leaks of classified government documents by online whistleblower WikiLeaks, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday.

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AP – The online website WikiLeaks on Sunday blamed the temporary outage of its site on a denial-of-service attack by unknown hackers trying to prevent its release of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. State Department documents.

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Reuters – Online retailers could see their best Thanksgiving weekend ever this year, as deep online discounts, once reserved for Cyber Monday, were offered more broadly throughout the weekend.

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AP – The online website WikiLeaks said Sunday it will release of hundreds of thousands of classified State Department documents in defiance of U.S. demands not to publish the files.

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PC World – It’s been less than three weeks since Activision’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops” went on sale. The game quickly broke entertainment sales records, with worldwide revenue of US$650 million during its first five days in stores. The game’s online component is wildly popular, with hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously logged in to battle each other, and is creating some big numbers of its own.

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Mashable – More numbers are trickling in for the start of the holiday shopping season, specifically as it pertains to online retailers.

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PC Magazine – A record number of shoppers are expected to make purchases online on Cyber Monday, a USA Today report has said.

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AP – The Obama administration has told whistleblower WikiLeaks that its expected imminent release of classified State Department cables will put “countless” lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize U.S. relations with its allies.

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AFP – The economic downturn has US cable television companies shedding subscribers in record numbers and Americans increasingly “cutting the cord” in favor of cheaper online options, new research shows.

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Reuters – Early discounts may have taken some of the shine off Cyber Monday but the key online holiday shopping day is still expected to attract bargain hunters who may not have had their fill over the weekend.

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PC Magazine – Online consumer sales on Black Friday climbed by 15.9 percent, according to Coremetrics, which released its own findings on Saturday. Mobile buying is on the rise, but social sites had barely any impact.

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