It is now the fifth-largest national newspaper website in the UK, says the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Independent.co.uk grew daily unique browsers by 3.4% between February and March to 644,331. Monthly unique browsers grew by 13.33% over the same period to reach 14,528,315. This was enough to put it ahead of Mirror Group Digital, its national website network that includes Mirror.co.uk, 3am.co.uk and MirrorFootball.co.uk, which reported month-on-month declines in monthly and daily browser numbers.

Children's minister Tim Loughton says parents are helping their children set up under-age profiles on Facebook, a comment that came in a debate on "sexting." Loughton, who has three teens himself, said, "Having a Facebook page, you should be at least 13 to do that. That is not legally enforceable". Labour MP Ann Coffey urged the government and mobile phone companies to do more to combat "sexting" during a Westminster Hall debate. Loughton said the government took "very seriously our responsibility to ensure the response in all areas of child protection and safeguarding is as effective as possible".

Richard Allan, director of policy in Europe for the social network, is one of 12 members of the Digital Advisory Board that will inform the team behind Gov.uk, a single government domain currently in beta that's intended to eventually replace New Labour's Directgov website. It will be chaired by Martha Lane Fox, who reviewed the government's online services in 2010. The Cabinet Office has been in talks with Facebook and other industry players on identity-handling online. The board's first meeting took place on April 25.

The European Data Protection Supervisor says the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement may trample individual rights. So far, 22 member states, including the UK, have signed up for the legislation. A debate on the EU's adoption of the treaty is expected in June. "While more international co-operation is needed for the enforcement of IP rights, the means envisaged must not come at the expense of the fundamental rights of individuals," said Giovanni Buttarelli, assistant European data protection supervisor.

Internet payments system World Pay says the high amount of money spent online was due to the ability to shop while away from the computer. Over half purchased items while watching TV and 3% did so in the bathroom. Britain's mobile spending revolution is partly due to it having one of the highest rates of smartphone ownership, according to a separate survey from TNS, a research consultancy. Over half of Britons own app-enabled mobiles.

Thousands of Canadian retailers already have equipment in place to let customers pay for purchases with a swipe of their mobile phones, putting the country in the lead in developing a system that could one day make cash obsolete. If consumers embrace the system - and that's still a big "if" - clip-and-save coupons, transit passes, library cards and perhaps even driver's licenses could become things of the past. All that's needed is an agreement among banks, credit card companies and telecoms; it's coming soon.

As it aims to place digital at the heart of its operations, Johnston Press has revealed a loss of GBP143.8 million, while advertising revenue continued to fall by 9%. The company has said that the substantial loss was due to 'the impairment of the value of publishing titles of GBP163.7m, compared with the charge of GBP13.1m in 2010.' To reflect the move to centre its core offering around digital content in the future, Johnston Press saw digital advertising revenue grow by 0.7%, following the launch of online business listing directory Find it and local voucher website DealMonster.

In the terms and conditions of ticket purchases for the London 2012 Games it states ticket holders cannot publish images, video or sound online. However, Sir Keith Mills, deputy chairman of organisers Locog, said "we live in an internet world... and there's not much we can do about it". He said a "common sense approach" would be used to protect media rights. Spectators will be able to watch many events, including the cycle road race, triathlon and marathon, without a ticket. But the ticket conditions as they currently stand prohibit ticket holders from posting photos and personal footage of the …

The online media provider, which made $60 million in profit in the first quarter of 2011, was pushed into a global loss in the first three months thanks to its launch in the UK & Ireland on 9 January. This pushed losses at its non-U.S. operations from $60 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 to $103 million in the three months to the end of March. Subscriber numbers to its international services, which are available in more than 40 markets outside the U.S., grew 65% from the previous quarter to 3.07 million by the end of March.

The regional court in Mannheim ruled that Nokia must stop sales of the 3G devices in Germany, though the beleaguered OEM can appeal. In any event, the vendor added, most of its newer products use different methods, a claim IPCom denies, insisting all 3G models are included. It's the latest twist in the handset patents saga, Nokia has lost a round to IPCom in Germany, which is seeking to bar the Finnish vendor's 3G smartphones from the country.