The German Chancellor — whose party is closely aligned with the telcoms sector — says she wants a two-tier Internet; on the "fast" Internet, carriers will be allowed to slow down access to services that haven't paid bribes for "premium" carriage; on the "regular" Internet, ISPs will just give you the data you ask for.

A surgically precise e-mail hacking effort is targeting health care companies in an effort to steal corporate secrets for insider stock trading.

The Obama administration is "walking the walk" on government transparency by asking the public to help write a guide for agencies on ways to engage the public.

"This resource reflects the commitment of the government and civic partners to measurably improve participation programs, and is designed using the same inclusive principles that it champions," wrote Corinna Zarek, White House senior adviser for open government, and Justin Herman, SocialGov lead for the General Services Administration, in a blog post announcing the Public Participation Playbook.

A Saudi prince, a disappearing share bloc and an upset voting result has produced the first serious threat to the Murdoch family’s future control of News Corporation and 21st Century Fox. ... So what happened to the missing shares in the proposal to abolish the two classes? .

The 87.6 million shares voted against the proposal was 4.3 million shares short of the Murdoch/Alwaleed total. The result was a terrifyingly close margin for a family that has not faced a serious threat to its control in 60 years. .

Two theories have emerged in the confusing aftermath of the annual meeting to explain the missing shares..

First, that it was a stuff up. Prince Alwaleed’s executives ticked the Approve box on every proposal and didn’t realise they needed to oppose the share classes resolution. Implausibly, this means News Corp executives who knew the proxy numbers didn’t pick up the phone to call their firmest supporter to ask what was going on. The result was a shambles..

Alternatively, Prince Alwaleed split his vote, with a majority supporting the Murdochs, with whom he could still say he had kept faith in, but a significant stake opposing them..

Whatever the reason, there is no mistaking the message from shareholders.

Excluding the Murdoch and Alwaleed stock, less than 24 per cent of shareholders voted for Rupert Murdoch to remain on the News board, part of an across-the-board vote against directors by institutions.

Back in October we launched a competition to get #StopDataRetention memes in front of as much of the Australian internet as possible, with the slightly awkward offer of dinner at Parliament House as an additional incentive to get creative..

Instead of one concept going viral and making for an easy winner, something more interesting happened: hundreds of people got busy and sent this crazy assortment of memes and ideas out into the wilds of the internets, raising hell right when we needed it most. We've shortlisted the sharpest and most-shared ones: now we need you to choose the winner.

Whichever of these fine images gets the most shares/retweets/upvotes by 9am AEDT Wednesday morning November 26 will win — and yes, in the process, a bunch of this work will get in front of hundreds of thousands more eyeballs.