Why was Twitter alone in challenging the secret WikiLeaks subpoena, which the government was no doubt serving other companies? "The answer might lie in the figure leading Twitter's legal efforts, Alexander Macgillivray, an incredibly mild mannered (really) but sharp-as-a-tack cyber law expert," Fast Company suggests. "Twitter's general counsel comes out of Harvard's prestigious Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the cyber law powerhouse that has churned out some of the leading Internet legal thinkers." The center, notes Fast Company, was founded a little over a decade ago by Charles Nesson, the famous defender of Pentagon Papers leaker …

Financial services provider Intuit is making a mobile payments play this week with the launch of a free version of its nearly two-year-old GoPayment service. "GoPayment, designed for small businesses that don't yet accept credit cards -- think babysitters, plumbers, dogwalkers and flea market vendors -- aims to compete with Square, a mobile payments company launched in 2009 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey," Fortune reports. What's more, Intuit plans to promote the new service through television ads and YouTube videos starting this week. "This will attract the smaller businesses that couldn't take credit card payments before or …

Simple social measurement service Klout has secured $8.5 million, led by Kleiner Perkins. According to VentureBeat: "The investment is part of Kleiner's $250M sFund for social startups, and the firm's Bing Gordon will be joining Klout's board of directors." With the new funding, Klout says it plans to expand its engineering team to include more online services in addition to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. "It's also aiming to expand the consumer experience to help users make more sense of their online reputation, and potentially make better use of it as well," VentureBeat notes. Additional investors included Greycroft …

Contrary to previous reports, "The Daily," News Corp.'s iPad newspaper, will not make its debut next Monday, January 17. No, according to Forbes, "media nerds" will actually have wait until Wednesday, January 19 to get their hands on the highly anticipated service. "The debut can't come soon enough for The Daily's staffers, who for weeks have been engaged in full-scale dry runs, cranking out dummy issues for what I've been told is a distribution list of 1,000 privileged readers," writes Forbes. Citing sources, MediaMemo recently reported that The Daily would debut next Monday. Hedging its bet, it …

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the Office of Fair Trading is reportedly cracking down on bloggers and Twitter users who exploit their "influencer" status to endorse products or services without acknowledging their relationship with a brand. Case in point, the government's consumer watchdog has brought a case against a PR firm that was discovered to be paying bloggers to write "effusively" about its clients, the Guardian reports. In a statement, the OFT said online advertising and marketing that did not disclose paid-for promotions were "deceptive" under fair trading rules. As the Guardian points out, "Celebrity twitter endorsements …

Not only is Verizon Wireless reportedly ready to carry the iPhone, but it expects to offer the phones with unlimited data-use plans, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Such plans would provide a key means of distinguishing its service from rival AT&T Inc., which limits how much Internet data such as videos and photos its customers may use each month," reasons The Journal. What's not clear is how long Verizon plans to offer the unlimited-data plans, or if its network is robust enough to handle all the added data. Since it started exclusively selling the iPhone in …

News that MySpace plans to layoff more than half of its remaining 1,000 employees is no surprise, but what it means for the company's future remains an open question. Officially, MySpace "will be touting the changes as a restructuring to shed 'legacy' businesses and products," according to AllThingsD's NetworkEffect blog, which broke the story. Internally, sources tell NetworkEffect, "The company is primarily being shopped to private-equity buyers, although one intriguing possibility currently being raised within News Corp. is to try to sell Myspace to Yahoo." (Watch out, Facebook!) "Staff …

Thanks to the terms of Goldman Sachs' $450 million investment in Facebook, the world is finally getting an accurate picture of the company's business operations. During the first nine months of 2010, Facebook earned $355 million in net income, reports Reuters, citing documents distributed this week by Goldman. Also according to the document, Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2010. "Assuming the Reuters report is correct, Facebook would have at least $500 million in net income for 2010, with an operating margin of up 30 …

Gartner has raised its global IT spending forecast to $3.6 trillion in 2011 -- up 5.1% from 2010, reports ZDNet. Gartner's previous outlook called for IT spending growth of 3.5% for 2011. For 2010, Gartner said the official global IT spending tally was $3.4 trillion -- up 5.4% from 2009. Gartner had projected IT spending growth of 3.2 percent for 2010. The research firm, however, said that devaluation of the U.S. dollar is largely responsible for boosting its forecast. "Of the 2.2 percent spread between its forecast and what actually happened with IT spending, 1.6 percent of …

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said this week that the Hulu Plus service will be coming to Android handsets "in the coming months," reports The Next Web. Although, "When a company says something will launch in the coming months, its usually a little longer than you expect." The service will only be available to owners of Android devices running Android 2.2 or above, but, as The Next Web note, over 50% of Android devices now run the firmware. As a result, "It will make its way to a healthy number of users within the U.S." Kilar made the …