THE NEWS WRAP: Government under fire for supposed “class war” budget

The Government has come under heavy fire from sections of the media and the Federal Opposition for supposedly launching a “class war” budget.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey accused Labor of punishing aspirational Australians in the budget, which cut several “middle class welfare” measures to get the nation’s finances back into the black.

Meanwhile, the Greens have accused the Government of giving a “leg up” to the mining industry and criticised the drive to get single parents and the disabled back to work.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard responded by claiming that not bringing the budget back to surplus would add to inflationary pressures.

Google faces ad probe

Google’s advertising system is being investigated by the US Justice Department, the company has revealed.

The investigation is looking at how Google’s automated ad system treats some, unnamed, advertisers. The search engine giant said that it has put aside $US500 million to settle any claims arising from the case.

Facebook in app security breach

Facebook apps may have leaked the personal details of millions of users to third parties such as advertisers, a web security firm has claimed.

Symantec said that the data leaks took place after the giveaway of “access tokens” to third parties, enabling them to view profile information and chats between users.

Facebook said that it has updated the security of its apps following Symantec’s criticism.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 130.33 points to 12,630.03. The dollar was down to 107.01 US cents.