The ACCC has cleared, provisionally, the proposed deal between Optus and NBN Co under which Optus is to be paid around $800m to shut down its HFC network and transfer customers onto the NBN.

Peak telecoms consumer body the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has received a tick of approval from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) in its first review, midway through its four year funding cycle. However, the relatively new body has been told to lift its game in a number of areas, including a suggestion to modify its adversarial approach to industry.

ICANN has named Alain Pellet, a former chairperson of the International Law Commission, to the curiously titled role of 'Independent Objector' for its new generic top-level domain program.

Electronic Frontiers Australia is calling for organisations to be required to notify data breaches where personal details of individuals are compromised.

The government has released its review of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman calling for regular independent reviews and greater accountability but stopping short of calling for direct government oversight.

The final report of the Government's Convergence Review has called for the creation of a new regulator to replace the Australian Communications and Media Authority: one that would be free from the ministerial oversight under which the ACMA operates.

The ACCC has secured financial penalties from TPG for misleading advertisements with chairman Rod Sims saying he is tired of 'fine print' qualifications in advertisements, and threatening an increasingly aggressive approach to such practices.

The ACMA is moving to fulfil the commitment it gave last October to make calls to 1800 numbers from mobile phones free and calls to 13 and 1300 numbers the same price as calls to standard fixed line numbers.

The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has upheld an appeal, on a point of law, by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in relation to a case it brought against MSY Technology for giving false and misleading information on product warranties to its customers.

COMMENT Australian ISP iiNet has every reason to feel vindicated today after it was cleared by the High Court of being responsible for its customers' violation of copyright.

AFACT has called for legislative change after the High Court unanimously dismissed its appeal against the NSW Federal Court ruling that iiNet did not authorise copyright infringement when its Internet customers downloaded pirated movies.

The High Court has unanimously dismissed the appeal by film and TV companies against the NSW Federal Court ruling that iiNet did not authorise copyright infringement when its Internet customers downloaded pirated movies.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued final guidelines on non-discrimination for NBN and superfast telecommunications networks, with a warning to NBN Co and other wholesale providers of superfast broadband, about discrimination between customers.

Telstra is once again at odds with the rest of the industry on how wholesale services should be regulated: it wants wholesale ADSL prices to be set in relation to retail prices: others are calling for cost based pricing.

The High Court is due to hand down its decision on the movie studios' long-running bid to nail iiNet for sanctioning breach of copyright by failing to stop its customers to download copyrighted movies over the Internet.

As expected, the US Department of Justice has commenced legal action against Apple and several publishers alleging conspiracy to fix prices. Some of the publishers have already settled.

The ACCC has given the go-ahead to Foxtel's planned acquisition of Austar, but has imposed restrictions tighter than those proposed by Foxtel in the undertaking it submitted in March in a bid to get the deal over the line.

Australian Greens communications spokesperson, senator Scott Ludlam said the ACCC should have delayed its decision on the Foxtel Austar deal until allegations of commercial piracy levelled against News Corp subsidiary NDS had been resolved.

It seems that Google isn't taking a decision by the full bench of the Federal Court lying down.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has given the go-ahead for the acquisition of satellite TV provider AUSTAR by cable network FOXTEL paving the way for half Telstra owned provider to assume a dominant position in the pay TV space. The ACCC gave its blessing for the merger to proceed after accepting court-enforceable undertakings from FOXTEL.