Google confirms Chinese e-mail hack

Google has confirmed that hundreds of attacks have been made on personal Gmail accounts of senior US government officials, political activists, military personnel and journalists, says Computing.co.uk.

Giving details of the hack in a blog post, Google suggests the attempt to collect user passwords originated in Jinan, China.

“The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' e-mail, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples' forwarding and delegation settings,” reads the blog.

Apple has concluded a licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will enable Apple's online music store to offer songs from the largest of the four top record companies, sources with knowledge of the talks said, according to Cnet.

The agreement means Apple now has the rights to offer recordings from all of the major labels. In addition, Apple has reached agreements with some of the large music publishers, the sources said.

Apple on Tuesday revealed it would unveil a long-anticipated service called iCloud on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The company did not disclose whether iCloud would include any music features, but Apple managers have sought for more than a year to create a music feature for the service.

Facebook has fired a fresh legal challenge at a man claiming to own half the company, to force him to submit full evidence or drop his case, writes V3.co.uk.

Convicted fraudster Paul Ceglia is suing for half the value of Facebook, based on a contract allegedly signed with CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2003.

Zuckerberg has now given sworn testimony he never discussed creating a social networking site called thefacebook.com with Ceglia, much less signed any contract.

It's not Big Brother, but 'big business' that Internet users are more worried about, states the Associated Press.

A new survey found that nearly half of Internet-connected Americans aged 16 and older worry about businesses checking what they do online. By comparison, 38% worry about the government doing so.

The latest study from the Centre for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California found that 82% of Americans use the Internet, the same as in 2009.