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Yahoo named Henrique de Castro, a Google ad executive, as its new chief operating officer, deepening Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's stamp on the company.

Online registration systems have dramatically boosted voter sign-ups in the dozen states that allow citizens to register to vote over the Internet. Colorado has logged more than 79,000 voter registrations since Sept. 1 — and more than 300,000 since introducing online sign-ups in 2010. In the two years prior to going online, the state logged roughly 90,000 registrations.

Advertisers are girding for battle against browser mechanisms intended to offer more online privacy. At stake is nothing less than the future of the surveillance economy.

Only about a third of those "Gangnam Style" plays, 438 million, have been of the original video.

Part of the enduring appeal of YouTube is the sheer random nature of it all -- the way videos of a South Korean pop song or a doped-up kid after a dentist visit can go from obscure to internationally known in a matter of days. But increasingly, the Web's leading video site has also been working to become the Internet's cable provider, mixing channels of its own original content, often in partnership with established stars, into the mix.

There are growing fears that the regime could shut down the Internet across the country, similar to what was done in Egypt during its January 2011 uprising, which brought communication in Cairo to a near standstill.

Say it's your birthday or you've just had a baby, maybe got engaged or bought your first house. If you're like many Americans, your friends are texting their congratulations, sending you an e-card or clicking "Like" on your Facebook wall....

Tonight's debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly infuriated many fans as a server crash left the event's live stream largely inaccessible  The debate took place at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and was available to those outside of the auditorium only via a $4.95 pay-per-view live stream.

No baby photos in the status update, no "my kid said the cutest thing" tweets. Some parents are responding to concerns about privacy and safety by keeping their children's photos and stories offline, totally.

President Obama and Mitt Romney were a huge sensation on Twitter Wednesday night, generating a record 10.3 million tweets over the course of their 90-minute debate. It was the most tweeted event in political history, Twitter says, and exceeded the activity on the social media site during the political conventions. The high point, however, didn't belong to either candidate vying for the White House.