Webwire: Facebook IPO next week?; NBTC to post data standards in Mar

Facebook may commence the process of an up IPO as early as next week, sources claim. The company reportedly hopes to raise up to $10 billion, which would give the company a valuation of as much as $100 billion.

Bloomberg 

Thai regulator NBTC plans to announce its draft set of quality standards for mobile data networks in March.

Bangkok Post 

Twitter has developed the ability to censor tweets on a per-country basis, if asked to by a national government. But the move has drawn the ire of free speech campaigners.

Shares in Juniper Networks fell 3%, after the vendor provided a Q1 profit estimate of 11 to 14 cents per share - less than half of the Street's consensus forecast of 27 cents.

BusinessWeek 

NEC plans to cut 10,000 jobs, due to financial woes caused largely by “drastic changes” in the Japanese mobile phone market. The company revealed it has already lost over $1 billion this fiscal year.

Australian Associated Press 

Steve Jobs directly asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2007 to stop Google from poaching staff from Apple, according to an email submitted as evidence in a case by software engineers accusing major tech companies of conspiring to prevent poaching, and thus keep wages low.

Reuters 

Australian ISP TPG Telecom has broken from what appears to have been a policy of not criticizing incumbent Telstra for its wholesale access terms, arguing to regulator ACCC that Telstra's uncompetitive actions mean its wholesale DSL service should be more strictly regulated.

Delimiter 

UK officials have arrested five men, including four current and former employees of tabloid newspaper The Sun, in association with the investigations into alleged bribery and phone hacking by News Corp employees.

Bloomberg