Google knew that software installed in its camera cars could capture and store the online data of millions of people, including emails, text messages and images, when it sent them out to photograph Britain’s streets, according to US authorities investigating the company.

Browser-based version retains all the features of home console original.

One of Google’s most senior executives issued a stark warning tonight that the power of the internet to free some of the world’s most oppressed people risks being overturned by autocratic governments who seek to “Balkanise” the web by controlling what can be accessed.

Outlook Yell has a problem. The stumbling directories business that used to be known as Yellow Pages has become a byword for bad management and bad debt. (It has a mountain of the stuff which needs restructuring. Again.) Not to mention the fact that the internet has presented all sorts of challenges to its business model.

New-media gurus, political pointy-heads, start-up whizz-kids and rock stars mingled at this year's Zeitgeist conference. Adam Sherwin reports

Does the announcement that Waterstones is to sell Amazon's Kindle mean that bookshops are giving up, asks John Walsh

The search engine is taking its quest for knowledge offline at a secluded British hotel

The European Commission has given Google "a matter of weeks" to change its internet search policy after Brussels regulators ruled that the US web giant could be abusing its dominant position.

The European Union said today that Google must in ''a matter of weeks" outline steps it is willing to take to ease concerns about alleged abuses of its dominant position in the online search market.

Competition among comparison sites is growing as bullying allegations and credibility issues emerge. Simon Read reports

Despite the asinine remarks of A.A.Gill, Beard is great on TV but transforming her blog into books (this is No.2) may be a step too far.

Testament to the human capacity for optimism, the financial world is increasingly bullish about Facebook. And the company itself – based on the newly hiked price at which it will float on the stock market at the end of the week – estimates its worth at $100bn or more, bigger than such stalwarts as Disney, Ford and Kraft.

Microsoft Corp unveiled a new design yesterday for its second-ranked Bing search engine, introducing elements from Facebook and other social networks, as it tries to claw market share from leader Google.

Google has hit a major milestone in app downloads from its site.