German broadcasters RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 had argued that browser plug-in was anti-competitive and threatened their ability to offer users content for "free".

A spokeswoman for RTL responded: "We are weighing a possible course of action against the ruling and assessing the prospects of an appeal."

Last month Eyeo successfully defended itself against similar claims by two other German publishers - Die Zeit and Handelsblatt - at a court in Hamburg.

ESET researchers have issued a technical paper today, analysing a new worm that is infecting routers in order to commit social networking fraud, hijacking victims’ internet connections in order to “like” posts and pages, “view” videos and “follow” other accounts.

The sad truth is that there are many individuals and companies out there who are keen to manipulate their social media standing, and have no qualms about hiring third-parties who claim to have methods to bump up the number of views of a corporate video, boost the followers on a Twitter feed or get you more Facebook fans.

Prof Harari, who has written a landmark book charting the history of humanity, said mankind would evolve to become like gods with the power over death, and be as different from humans of today as we are from chimpanzees.

“I think it is likely in the next 200 years or so homo sapiens will upgrade themselves into some idea of a divine being, either through biological manipulation or genetic engineering of by the creation of cyborgs, part organic part non-organic.

Amazon had for years denied that its UK corporate structures were artificial or tax-motivated. The move will be greeted as a victory for the chancellor who last September singled his determination to rein in technology firms going to extraordinary lengths to avoid UK tax. “You are welcome here in Britain with open arms,” he said.

Sales are still being recorded by Amazon EU Sarl, a Luxembourg-registered company, but – crucially for tax purposes – will be booked in a UK branch of that company, for which a tax return must be filed with HMRC.

The Bank blew its cover on Friday when it accidentally emailed details of the project – including how the bank intended to fend off any inquiries about its work – direct to the Guardian.

The email indicates that a small group of senior staff are to examine the effect of a Brexit under the authority of Sir Jon Cunliffe, who as deputy director for financial stability has responsibility for monitoring the risk of another market crash.

The agency’s deputy director, Maksim Ksenzov, had issued a warning to the three companies on 6 May, telling them they were in violation of the bloggers law because they had not provided requested data on the number of daily visitors to several users’ pages, as well as information allowing the authorities to identify the owners of accounts with more than 3,000 daily visitors.

Since the start of President Vladimir Putin’s third term in 2012, the government has launched a crackdown on the internet in Russia, passing laws that give state supervisory bodies wide-ranging powers to to regulate and block websites.

Several news sites critical of the Kremlin have been blocked in Russia, including Grani.ru, EJ.ru and Kasparov.ru, which was founded by self-exiled chess grandmaster and activist Garry Kasparov.

Online retailer eBay plans to test a new buyer loyalty program in Germany called eBay+, starting in the second half of this year. In exchange for an annual membership fee, buyers will get new perks, including fast, free shipping and returns.

A fast shipping program from eBay could be tricky, since the company -- unlike Amazon or Walmart -- doesn't have its own warehouses or stores for shipping goods.

The weakness is the result of export restrictions the US government mandated in the 1990s on US developers who wanted their software to be used abroad. The regime was established by the Clinton administration so the FBI and other agencies could break the encryption used by foreign entities.

"Logjam shows us once again why it's a terrible idea to deliberately weaken cryptography, as the FBI and some in law enforcement are now calling for," J. Alex Halderman, one of the scientists behind the research, wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "That's exactly what the US did in the 1990s with crypto export restrictions, and today that backdoor is wide open, threatening the security of a large part of the Web."

Melbourne penetration tester Thiebauld Weksteen is warning system administrators that robots.txt files can give attackers valuable information on potential targets by giving them clues about directories their owners are trying to protect.

Admins would be best excluding assets based on general terms and not through absolute references.

Wildlife is rapidly dying out across Europe, as biodiverse habitats are invaded by urban sprawl, intensive agriculture, alien species and commercial forestry.

Butterflies, bees and birds are all in decline. The report reveals, for example, that populations of grassland butterflies halved between 1990 and 2011 and 24 per cent of European bumblebee species are now threatened by extinction.

The same bleak picture is painted for Europe's fish stocks and marine habitats. Only 7 per cent of species and 9 per cent of habitats in the marine environment were rated as "in favourable conservation status".