VENTURE CAPITAL POST

The U.S. Marshals Service on Thursday received more than two dozen bids for 50,000 bitcoins seized from the alleged owner of Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar on which authorities say drugs and other illegal goods could be bought.

Vodafone Qatar VQFS.QA has scrapped its bid to buy state-owned wholesale Internet provider Qatar National Broadband Network (QNBN), the country's No.2 mobile operator by subscribers said on Sunday.

France's competition watchdog said on Thursday it had given its go-ahead to Numericable's purchase of Virgin Mobile France. Numericable, which is also in the process of buying number 2 mobile operator SFR, agreed in June to buy Virgin Mobile France from owners Britain's Carphone Warehouse and entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group for an enterprise value of 325 million euros.

Investment in the fast-growing market for Internet-connected devices gathered pace this year and is set to attract more top U.S. technology and telecoms buyers of firms active in the market, a report from a merger advisory firm said on Thursday.

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, one of the world's most wanted cyber fugitives, says his nearly three-year fight against extradition to the United States to face online piracy charges has left him broke.

European privacy regulators want Internet search engines such as Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft's Bing (MSFT.O) to scrub results globally, not just in Europe, when people invoke their "right to be forgotten" as ruled by an EU court.

China showed governments and the planet's biggest tech firms last week its vision for global Internet governance - clean, controlled and choreographed.

EU lawmakers will likely vote on Thursday on a motion proposing the break-up of Google (GOOGL.O) and other Internet technology companies, increasing political pressure on the bloc’s antitrust regulators to take a stronger line on the group.

The European Parliament is preparing a non-binding resolution that proposes splitting Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) search engine operations in Europe from the rest of its business as one possible option to rein in the Internet company’s dominance in the search market.

Comcast Corp's (CMCSA.O) merger with Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N) is going "full steam ahead" despite uncertainty around new rules governing net neutrality, Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts told reporters on Wednesday.

Verizon Communications Inc is optimistic the Federal Communications Commission will make the "right" decision in legislating rules to regulate how Internet service providers manage their Web traffic, the company's chief financial officer told investors at a conference on Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said Internet service providers should be regulated more like public utilities to make sure they grant equal access to all content providers, touching off intense protests from cable and telecoms companies and Republican lawmakers.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (BABA.N) first full quarterly report card to Wall Street investors on Tuesday will be scrutinized by the hopeful seeking validation for lofty stock price targets and studied by the few skeptics searching for inauspicious signs.

The U.S. government sued AT&T Inc (T.N) on Tuesday, alleging the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier sold consumers unlimited data plans but would reduce their Internet speeds once they exceeded a certain amount of data.

About 100,000 Hungarians rallied on Tuesday night to protest at a planned tax on data traffic and the broader course of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government they saw as undermining democracy and relations with European Union peers.