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Reuters – Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

Appolicious – It turns out the iTunes App Store might be a little more like the Android Market than previously believed, at least in terms of the fact that many game developers struggle with exposure, while a small group rakes in a lot of revenue.

Reuters – Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

Appolicious – Question-and-answer community website Quora has finally come to the iTunes App Store with an app that taps you in to experts, community members and anyone else who can dish out information when you need a question answered. Read about it below, and then get some more specific answers from Chefs Feed, an app that gets restaurant recommendations from actual chefs, rather than just other users. …

The Christian Science Monitor – Cellphone hacking has had more than its 15 minutes of fame recently, from the London reporting scandal that shook Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to the recent complaints from Hollywood celebrities Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis that private photos were stolen from their mobile hand-helds.

Digital Trends – Microsoft’s massive $8.5 billion deal to buy Skype seems to be working its way through U.S. regulatory scrutiny without much trouble, but there may be a new wrinkle emerging in the European Union. Italian VoIP company Messagenet has written to the European Commission warning that if Microsoft is permitted to acquire Skype, it will solidify Skype’s dominant position in VoIP calling, excluding other VoIP companies from the market. Messagenet’s proposed solution: let Microsoft buy Skype, but forbid Microsoft to bundle Skype software with its Windows operating systems and require Skype to make its VoIP services interoperable with other Internet phone providers.

ContributorNetwork – A lot has been made of the rock-bottom price tag attached to Amazon.com’s new multitouch tablet. The going theory right now is that Amazon hopes to make it up in volume; not volume of tablets sold (Amazon may well be taking a loss), but the volume of ebooks and other digital content sold. Amazon’s closest competitor, Barnes and Noble, seems to have taken just such an approach with its Nook Color, which was already considered a bargain at $249.

ContributorNetwork – Why did everyone think that Amazon’s Kindle tablet, revealed to be the Kindle Fire, would cost $249? Because that was the price tag of the device it most closely resembles: Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color; a “Reader’s Tablet” that’s been out since last year.

Digital Trends – On Wednesday, while Jeff Bezos was taking the stage to unveil the Kindle Fire (our impressions here) and its new Silk browser, Amazon employees were furiously buying up about 500 different Website domain names related to the Kindle Fire and Silk. All of the purchases were defensive, but a few of them hint that Amazon may have broader plans for its Silk browser. The online retailer may bring its browser to PC, Mac, Windows Phone, Windows Shop, and Android. Registrations for “silkontablets.com” and “silkonsmartphones.com” hint at even broader support.

Reuters – With online business increasingly driving economic growth, developing nations’ top priority should be the infrastructure their citizens need to get connected, delegates at an Internet conference in Nairobi said this week.