Google is rolling out a feature that lets members of its online social network automatically find themselves in photos posted by friends.

The "Find My Face" feature being added to Google+ over the next several days is opt-in only, meaning people have to make a point to turn it on.

Yahoo! is adding a comedy channel to its online line-up, kicking it off with a "CrazyStupidPolitics" show starring Bill Maher live in Silicon Valley in February.

"Bill Maher's special is a groundbreaking event, not only for Yahoo! and Bill but for the Internet as the first ever, live, free broadcast online," said Erin McPherson, head of Yahoo! Video.

Twitter on Thursday began rolling out overhauled pages crafted to boost the appeal of the message-sharing service to worldwide users.

"At the very core there are fewer places you have to click and less you have to learn," Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said as he and other executives unveiled the changes at the flourishing startup's new San Francisco offices.

A plan to expand the number of Internet domain names came under fire in the US Congress on Thursday, a day after the head of the Federal Trade Commission said it could potentially be a "disaster."

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global body which manages the Domain Name System that forms the technical backbone of the Web, will begin taking applications in January for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), the suffixes such as .com, .net or .org.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned Internet firms to avoid offering the "tools of oppression" to authoritarian Middle East regimes trying to crush democracy protests.

Clinton urged private companies to "embrace (their) role in protecting Internet freedom" and ensure protection of ordinary people as well as political activists.

Apple has lost a long-running legal battle against a Taiwanese-owned company that it claimed was illegally using its iconic iPad trademark in China, court officials and state media said.

A court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen ruled Tuesday that Apple lacked "supporting facts and evidence" for its claim that Proview Technology (Shenzhen) was infringing the US company's iconic tablet computer trademark.

South Korea has tightened monitoring of popular social networking sites to curb illicit content including an upsurge in North Korean propaganda, officials said Thursday.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission said an eight-member team was launched on Wednesday to examine Facebook and Twitter posts and smartphone applications.

The Kremlin reacted furiously on Wednesday after an obscene posting mocking liberal blogger Alexei Navalny, who was jailed in this week's protests, reappeared on President Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter feed.

"Last night an inappropriate retweet appeared on Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter account," the Kremlin said in a curt statement.

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic said Thursday it has been fined 7.7 million euros ($10.3 million) for violating European competition law in connection with sales of refrigerator parts.

The firm said it had been "fully cooperating" in a European Commission probe on compressors, which are used to cool refrigerators and freezers, that Panasonic and other manufacturers sold on the continent.

Google on Thursday began construction of a new data center in Hong Kong, the first of three planned for Asia as the Web giant expands to meet the region's growing thirst for information technology.

The facility, Google's first outside the United States and Europe, will cost US$300 million and is being built on 2.7 hectares (6.7 acres) in the Tseung Kwan O industrial estate in Kowloon, the firm said.