Speaking to reporters in Brussels via internet from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange launches an attack against US politicians. Assange says they influenced Visa into blocking the processing of donations to the website. He was speaking after the European Commission announced that the card firm's block on WikiLeaks did not break EU anti-trust rules.

tBoris Johnson's row with Google over tax avoidance took another turn as he accused the company of having a "PR problem". Johnson defended earlier comments that the technology firm had made "shed-loads" of money from the UK, and should either pay more tax or reinvest some of the capital back into Britain.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined the owners of Tetrus Telecoms GBP440,000 for sending millions of spam text messages over the last three years. The fine is the culmination of an investigation lasting 18 months, the ICO said, and is the first time the organisation has issued a fine for breaching the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) since it was handed powers to do so in January 2012.

n its latest effort to bring attention to government action it considers threatening to the open web, Google is warning German citizens and lawmakers of the potential dangers posed by copyright changes being considered in Germany's parliament. The campaign and petition is called "Verteidige Dein Netz," German for "Defend Your Net." Its target? A proposed law which would allow German publishers to charge Google for the short excerpts seen on sites such as Google News or remove content from the search engine entirely.

The BBC has reportedly sacked two members of staff over the misuse of their social media accounts, including Facebook and Twitter, a move which came to light following a freedom of information request from Parliament Street, a right-wing think tank. It is thought the ultimate sanction was brought to bear before the current self-imposed moratorium on staff tweets and status updates was imposed by the organisations acting director of news, Fran Unsworth, in the wake of the Savile and Newsnight fiascoes.

Smartphones will play an increasingly central role in Christmas shopping this year, with consumers even consulting them in-store, retailgazette.co.uk reports. The rise in so-called M-commerce has prompted many forecasters to suggest that more goods will be bought via smartphones this year than any other. Now, research by Deloitte has claimed the ubiquitous mobile devices will play more of a role than first thought, with consumers also checking on them even when they head out to physical shops.

The digital publishing company is increasing its international footprint with the opening of its second Australian office in Melbourne, in early 2013. Former Telstra Advertising Network (TAN) group sales manager Yun Yip has been appointed as account director. She will be responsible for setting up the new office, as well as growing Say Media's client base in Melbourne and supporting existing local clients.

Samsung UK is taking over JC Decaux's new Cromwell Road Digital Gateway in the run up to Christmas with an outdoor campaign created by Cheil UK. The campaign, which has been planned and booked by Rapport (formerly IPM), will use the digital outdoor space to showcase Samsung's range of mobile products in the approach to Christmas. This is the first time Samsung has brought together its entire range of mobile products in one media space, and will be used to promote the GS3, Note 10.1, Note 2 and the S Camera products during a two-week period running from this week.

The Institute for Public Policy Research today published a report calling for the establishment of independent, platform-neutral, content-led regulation, with broadcast regulator Ofcom acting as "the backstop authority". In its report, Life after Leveson: The challenge to strengthen Britain's diverse and vibrant media, author Nigel Warner calls for any new regulatory system, as has been considered by Lord Justice Leveson, to "be seen in light of the digital convergence which is uniting text, audio and video content onto the same platforms".

The Guardian is making a song and dance about its web traffic having surpassed that of BBC News in the U.S. That is a significant milestone for the UK publisher in the battle to win American hearts, minds, eyeballs - and advertisers. And it's partly true... The Guardian's October unique web visitors reached 11.8 million, surpassing BBC News' 10.8 million visitors... But those figures are only for the BBC News site (bbcnews.com). The main BBC homepage (bbc.com), which includes a BBC News feed that is one of the site's main fixtures, had 15.5 million visitors - still 3.7 million more …