Telstra is unlikely to offer the iPhone by the July 11 launch date after its negotiations broke down with Apple, the makers of the prized iPhone, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The disagreement came when Telstra wanted to put its Sensis products, including its navigational tool Whereis, on the iPhone preloaded. Telstra is also believed to have agreed to order tens of thousands of iPhones during the negotiation process.

However, this does not stop them getting the iPhone later this year, but it would dent some of its consumer base as people would go to other networks to get the ‘must-have’ gadget in Australia.

Internode and iiNet have spoken out and said that they are against the new Government’s plan for an ISP-level filtering initiative, saying that it could cripple our high-speed internet access.

Mandatory filtering was one of Kevin Rudd’s election promises and is set to move to an ISP level to remove "inappropriate content" from our browser. These are currently being trialled by ACMA (Australian Communication and Media Authority).

ACMA is expected to file its report with the minister Senator Stephen Conroy by the end of this month, after it pledged to fund a $125.8 million subsidy for ISPs to install the filtering equipment.

However, it has been panned by many critics - with security experts saying it should block malware than inappropriate content, one of the suggestions backed by Internode.

BigPond, however, is taking a different stance on the issue and is saying it will support the move. A spokesperson for the ISP said that ISP-level filtering is "part of the overall solution of reducing families’ exposure to online risks with education and safe online behaviour being as equally important".

One of the most influential technology blogs, TechCrunch, has decided to ban all news stories done by the Associated Press, after over the weekend it sent 7 DMCA takedown notices to Rogers Cadenhead’s Drudge Retort after linking to their posts.

TECHGEEK won’t do something that drastic, since we are not that influential anyway. But, the AP is a co-operative news agency owned by its "contributing newspapers, radio and television stations", according to its Wikipedia page. This means papers like the Washington Post and the New York Times own a stake in the company.

Does this mean that they can’t link any story from the Washington Post or the New York Times?

Basically, TechCrunch is saying that they won’t link, see or quote them; and they are banned until they drop the new strategy. Now, they can’t use Google News - unless they find a Reuters or AFP equivalent.

This week has been a very slow news reporting time again - since GamesArena feels abandoned. If you like GamesArena, you should save it by writing news!!!! (Looks at James)

Anyway, here is what happened in our network this week:

Ten was having a bad week, with their Big Brother managed to get in the Top 50 shows - barely, and its announcement that it will axe all credits.

Meanwhile, MySpace says it will get a redesign, Hulu gets two of the best shows from Viacom and a BBC HD ad shows how cinematic you can get from Antiques Roadshow.

eBay has now gotten its plan rejected for immunity (as of time of writing - it has postpone its plans) by the ACCC - which is good, so we don’t get forced into using PayPal.

An iPhone announcement was on during WWDC about a brand new iPhone, among others - and we got the release date (July 11) in the US and Australia, and Adam suffers from faulty equipment.

And we finish off with a sad note. NBC’s Tim Russert died on Friday. We send our condelensces to his family and colleagues at NBC News and at MSNBC.

Blitz Telecom, the owners of G-Node and Koala Telecom, is being reported to be in financial trouble and has been placed in administration earlier this month.

Director Umut Omer said in the Whirlpool forums that its primary investor recently withdrew his support and that he is working to "propose a Deed of Company Arrangement that would see creditors paid and the company come out of receivership".

He also admitted that some staff have been terminated during the week, but also said that he didn’t expect any changes in the service provided. He also attempted to reassure users, saying that the service will not interrupted.

Those who were with Koala Telecom, before Blitz bought them out of receivership, was having troubles last year.

Tired of that old, cluttered and really horrible coding on your MySpace page? Well, you may be in luck, as a new design is coming.

The new design is part of a global redesign, in an attempt to widen its demographics and boost user engagement -following Facebook. As well, in what is called the largest scale relaunch of its size, it will change its homepage, navigation, profile editing, search and its MySpaceTV player.

Other changes will come in the summer, but we do not know what they are. The main phase is set for June 18.

Reuters is also reporting that it will be working with Lucene Open-Source engine and community, marking the first time that MySpace will contribute to the open-source community.

From the screenshots we have seen, it looks really well. But we will get our editors’ opinions on it - as James and Stewart really do love MySpace.

eBay Australia has delayed its plans to force its customers to use its PayPal service, after the ACCC rejected its application for immunity.

Its plan to make it mandatory for local sellers to use PayPal or Cash on Delivery (COD) saw many users complaining, and as we reported, 700 people complained to the ACCC. The new plan would see the use of direct deposits, personal cheques and money orders to settle trades on the site.

While PayPal does allow payments by credit cards, you will not be able to transfer that money back to your bank account - as we know of.

Adam Internet customers have been suffering serious technical issues with their ADSL2 connections for almost two days, according to Whirlpool.

The issues began on Wednesday afternoon, with Adam informing its customers that it was impacting many of its exchanges. These have been blamed on its backhaul provider.

The backhaul provider (thought to be ETSA/Silk Telecom) attempted to fix the issues by restarting one of their core networking devices, only to create more havoc and Adam was forced to replace many of its equipment at multiple exchanges.

Internode, a fellow Adelaide based ISP, faced similar problems, but these were fixed within a few hours.

Customers are still experiencing some online packet loss and slow speeds but Adam has told customers it is still working to restore the service.

The ACCC has rejected the plans for immunity from eBay Australia to reduce the payment options to either its PayPal service or Cash on Delivery, arguing that forcing users to use the eBay-owned service will reduce competition.

The ACCC asked the Australian public to give submissions on their thought of eBay’s new plan. It received over 700 individuals submissions, arguing that eBay was ‘double-dipping’ with eBay’s fees on auctions and the PayPal transaction fee.

One of the submissions that was noted by the ACCC was made by BPAY, and showed that eBay would raise its fees by 45.7%. Other submissions noted by the report was from the Australian Payments Clearing Association.

The ACCC’s conclusion state that : "The ACCC considers that the notified conduct has, or is likely to have, the effect of substantially lessening competition in the market in which PayPal operates. The ACCC also considers that the notified conduct is likely to result in reduced choice for consumers, higher transactions costs and reduced innovation in online payment systems. Therefore, the ACCC concludes that the substantial anti-competitive detriments outweigh any public benefits resulting from the notified conduct. Accordingly, the ACCC proposes to issue a notice to revoke notification N93365 lodged by eBay International A.G. on 11 April 2008."

In translation: This means that eBay cannot start its plans for reducing the payment options unless it finds evidence that would exonerate itself before the deadline of the 26th June. Also, if they decide to push ahead with the plans, they would be prosecuted for anticompetitive conduct.

We want to hear on what you think about the plans made by eBay and your thoughts of the ACCC’s response.

NBC Universal’s and News Corporation’s rival Viacom has now seen the light - sort of. Viacom is lending two popular shows on its Comedy Central television channel to the joint venture, which is gaining popularity, and I think it is a major coup, since it only has shows from NBC Universal and News Corporation among the other video content from The Onion and CNET.

Since launching in October 2007, and gone public in March; it has been getting praise, content providers, and traffic. Ars Technica is also boasting that more than 63 million videos have been stream to date.

It has also expanded to Movies, from Sony Pictures, Universal, Warner Bros. and Fox’s movie catalogue.

Competing US networks like ABC and CBS, however, have yet to jump on the bandwagon - likely due to the control and revenue NBC demands for being on Hulu. According to Silicon Ally Insider, CBS has 191 partners who are distributing its content, including on AOL and MSN - the same sites that has to give up 30 percent of its ad revenue to get Hulu content.

While Viacom is giving Hulu a try, its offering consists of 15 episodes from both The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. However, Viacom is also launching full episodes for both of them at their respective sites at thedailyshow.com and Comedy Central’s site - and I could actually view it from Australia.

TechCrunch is also saying that PBS will be adding shows to Hulu later this month, including its flagship shows - like NOVA and Wired Science (which got the axe! BOO!)

Now, can you focus on your ‘international expansion’ in Canada and Australia - because frankly, you are worst than Apple on not giving us things.