Hackers attacked and defaced the website of India's IT minister on Friday amid a growing campaign against a law governing online comments which has been condemned by free-speech advocates.

An amendment to India's Information Technology Act in 2009, which was championed by minister Kapil Sibal, makes it illegal to make "grossly offensive" comments online, a measure seen by critics as a draconian limit on free speech.

The popular messaging WhatsApp service posted a blog on Thursday warning users of a string of hoax messages circulating on the network, assuring its users that there is no truth to any of them.

WhatsApp users have been flooded with lengthy messages asking them to forward the message to others on their list if they want to continue using WhatsApp as a free service.

Two U.S.-based Internet-monitoring companies say Syria has shut off the Internet nationwide.

Activists in Syria reached Thursday by satellite telephone confirmed the unprecedented blackout, which comes amid intense fighting in the capital, Damascus.

India is set to amend its hate speech laws following a public outcry over two women arrested for posting comments on Facebook after the death of hardline politician Bal Thackeray.

The new guidelines by the communications and information technology ministry will make it harder for police to arrest people who post allegedly offensive material online.

Microsoft is trying to skewer Google as a lousy holiday shopping guide in its latest attempt to divert more traffic to its Bing search engine.

The attack started Wednesday with a marketing campaign focused on a recent change in the way Google operates the part of its search engine devoted to shopping results. The revisions require merchants to pay Google to have their products listed in the shopping section.

A South Korean court has ordered Samsung Electronics to pay millions of dollars to a former employee who developed key technologies for the firm's lucrative TV business, an official said Thursday.

The ex-worker surnamed Chung had filed a suit against Samsung accusing it of scrimping on bonus payments after he had developed some 20 technologies -- later patented -- for the firm's TV business from 1991 to 1995.

A mobile phone that monitors the user's skin condition, checking for blemishes and colour, was unveiled in beauty-conscious Japan on Thursday.

The "Hada Memori" (skin memory) programme allows women to keep tabs on their complexion and track changes over time by storing records in the cloud.

Samsung Electronics announced on Wednesday that the GALAXY Camera is now commercially available in the UK, and will soon be available in other parts of the world in both White and Cobalt Black.

Unveiled in August, the GALAXY Camera combines high performance photography features with Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and the freedom of 3G/4G + Wi-Fi connectivity to create the world’s first truly Connected Camera. The GALAXY Camera ushers in a new era of visual communications, allowing users to shoot, enjoy, edit and share high quality images and video from anywhere, at any time through a single device.

Google launched an Internet campaign in Germany on Tuesday aiming to drum up public support against a proposed law that would force the search engine to pay publishers for content offered on the site.

The one-minute Internet video, entitled "defend your net", shows consumers using the search engine to find what they want on the web.

France's main Jewish students union (UEJF) has started legal action against Twitter to force the site to reveal details on people who posted a slew of anti-Semitic hate messages, its lawyer said Tuesday.

A hearing is set for January 8 at a Paris court, attorney Stephane Lilti said, adding that the group was also seeking the implementation of French laws on illicit content.