In the face of the recent revelations involving large-scale internet surveillance by the NSA the European Commission proposes "key reform" in more transparent, accountable and inclusive internet governance.

Such reform chiefly involves a "clear timeline" for the globalisation of ICANN and the IANA functions-- in other words pushing key duties such as domain name allocation away from US-based control. Other nations also demand such measures, including Russia, China and the UAE.

The EC also demands the strengthening of the global Internet Governance Forum, the launching of an online internet policy transparency platform (the Global Internet Policy Observatory) and the review of conflicts between national laws or jurisdictions.

The decline of the W. European PC market continues Gartner reports-- Q4 2013 sees shipments decline by -4.4% Y-o-Y to 14.7 million units, with drops across all segments and territories.

Mobile and desktop PC shipments for the quarter decline by -6.5% and -0.3% Y-o-Y respectively. Shipments to the professional segment are down by -1.7%, while the consumer market drops by -7%.

"Shipments for traditional PCs (desktops and mobile PCs) in 2013 decreased -14%, but the rate of unit decline is moderate across geographies-— which could indicate that the impact of tablets cannibalizing PC sales in mature markets is fading," the analyst says. "Additionally, large numbers of professional PCs running on Windows XP remained in use, and the corporate market has been increasing its PC replacement-— making up for a weak consumer PC market."

A Washington appeals court rules invalid the Federal Communication Commission's net neutrality regulations-- meaning US ISPs can start offering tiered internet services with faster connection speeds to companies willing to pay up.

Net neutrality rules were adopted in the US in 2010, and forced providers (such as Verizon and Comcast) to treat all content equally regardless of host. Their removal brings about a feudal era for the N. American internet, with content from those unwilling to cough up the cash appearing slower to consumers.

In the meantime consumers might also end up paying higher prices to access bandwidth-hungry services such as Netflix or YouTube. Netflix currently accounts for 32% of peak internet traffic in N. America, while Google's YouTube accounts for 19%.

"[Providers] are now in a position to not only make considerable sums of money but, in many ways, they are one of the most important arbiters of culture and speech and what is or isn't going to be on the Internet," BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker tells the Wall Street Journal.

Once again the two major analysts agree on a topic close to our hearts-- EMEA PC shipment continue falling during Q4 2013. Gartner says the decline is "less steep" at -6.7% Y-o-Y, while IDC describes shipments as "constrained."

According to Gartner EMEA Q4 2013 shipments total 25.8 million units with shipment declines across all regions, if less so than the last 7 quarters.

Consumers continue replacing PCs only on a "needed basis," since new form factors suffer from either limited availability or higher than average prices. On the other hand tablets, especially Androids, make popular, attractively priced, holiday presents.