The European Union is planning to extend telecom rules covering security and confidentiality of communications to web services such as Microsoft's Skype and Facebook's WhatsApp which could restrict how they use encryption.
The US government is keeping its encryption battle with Apple alive, pressing the high-tech giant to help crack an iPhone in a drug case in New York.
President Barack Obama made a pilgrimage Friday to SXSW -- the tech world's Davos and Woodstock rolled into one -- making a government recruitment pitch even as he fanned a row over encryption.
