That’s what you get for saying your merger will give you 37 percent of all UK mobile subscribers. The UK government’s Office of Fair Trading says it’s asking Europe’s permission for it - and not the European Commission - to review the proposed 50/50 merger of Orange and T-Mobile’s UK…

French president Nicolas Sarkozy went down pretty badly with ISPs, mobile operators and commercial broadcasters when in 2008 he announced he would tax them to fund the removal of prime-time ads from state broadcaster France Televisions. It’s been almost a year now since the tax took effect on March 2009,…

—BSkyB: The company is adding an e-wallet service to its online betting portals, to provide an alternative to using credit cards for every transaction. Sky Bet, Sky Poker, Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo currently have about 150,000 users and in 2009 brought in about £51.9 million in business (via iGamingBusiness)…

—Virgin Media: Regulators at the European Commission say they will “closely monitor” Virgin Media’s plans to monitor traffic on its network. The ISP said back in November that it would use deep-packet inspection to look at the traffic of 40 percent of its subscribers, equivalent to 1.6 million accounts, in…

What’s a little harmless DRM? The BBC claims that plans by Freeview broadcasters to apply digital rights management to high-definition television content is “light-touch”, as Ofcom launches a second public consultation on the matter. The regulator’s first public consultation, made back in September, was only open for 10 days. But…

Four of Germany’s largest media groups are set to form a shared web advertising network, after winning clearance from the European Commission’s competition department. The commision said there was no anticompetitive effect from a “proposed joint venture would develop and sell a new product to allow advertisers to reach better…

Score one for the ISPs in the Digital Economy Bill debate. Stephen Timms, the minister for Digital Britain, yesterday said that copyright holders, such as record labels and film studios, should shoulder 75 percent of the cost of tackling online piracy. The original bill had proposed ISPs and rightsholders split…

—Ofcom/BSkyB: Ofcom says a final decision on forcing Sky to cut wholesale channel prices will come in March. The board is due to meet this week as part of the deliberation process only. Competing pay TV providers, such as BT (NYSE: BT), have been lobbying for a review of the…

Under pressure from European regulators, Microsoft’s Bing is finally cutting the amount of time it stores some user search data. The company says it will now store user IP addresses for six months, instead of 18. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) had initially said more than a year ago that it would…

France isn’t letting a delay to its approval by a privacy agency stop it from pressing ahead with creating its new Hadopi anti-piracy body. New culture minister Frederic Mitterand has appointed Supreme Court adviser Marie-Françoise Marais to lead it. The body is the result of the Creation Et L’Internet bill…

—Spain’s three strikes: The Cabinet has approved an anti-piracy law that offers a graduated response to sites that engage in illegal file sharing. First warnings, then an appearance before a panel of experts, who decide whether to then refer the case to a judge. via CNBC —Omnifone and Gracenote: The…

More tussling over Europe’s taxes on big digital businesses: Consumer electronics firms like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) are lobbying the European Commission to change a levy on gadgets like MP3 players and printers, claiming it’s inconsistent, overly complex and cost them €2…

Could operators like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) be taxed every time a Frenchman clicks a web ad? A report presented to the French government suggests exactly that. The Zelnik Report recommends a levy on online advertising companies, as well as ISPs, to raise between €35 million ($50 million) and €50 million…

Looks like another stay of execution for illegal file sharers in France. The “three-strikes” anti-piracy law approved by the French senate last October, and due to to come into effect this month, is being put on pause by the government’s main agency overseeing the use of personal data and online…

One item definitely not in this year’s post-Christmas sales: ISPs estimate that the proposed Digital Economy Bill, the government’s newest effort to combat digital piracy, could cost consumers up to £500 million if it is put into effect. The bill offers up a graduated response to illegal file sharers, with…

The independently-funded news consortium (IFNC) pilot in Wales has attracted a bid from a remarkably broad alliance comprising… ITV (LSE: ITV) Wales’ existing staff ITN DMGT’s Northcliffe Gannett’s Newsquest Tindle Newspapers indie TV producer Boomerang Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies

“TV-like” video-on-demand services get regulated by Ofcom and the self-regulatory Association for Television On-Demand (ATVOD) starting Saturday. This is the UK implementation of the European Commission’s 2007 Audio-Visual Media Services (AVMS) directive, which extended regulation to “television-like” online services.

The battle of the browser is over, at least for a while… The European Commission’s anti-trust department said on Wednesday that it has accepted Microsoft’s commitment to allow Windows users in 30 European countries to choose which web browser to use on new PCs via a “choice screen”, in a…

The Lord Carter/Ofcom proposals for independently-funded news consortia (IFNC) opened the door to exciting potential multimedia JVs and a wave of smaller new online entrants. But it’s the incumbent news orgs like Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI), ITN, PA and even ITV (LSE: ITV) itself that are dominating bid discussions surrounding…