Ex-eBay boss named HP CEO

Hewlett-Packard has named former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman its president and CEO, replacing the harshly criticised Leo Apotheker in a bid to restore investor confidence in the iconic Silicon Valley company, reports Reuters.

The decision was made without a formal CEO search and piled renewed criticism on the board, which investors have blamed, at least in part, for the storied company's recent missteps.

Chairman Ray Lane, who becomes executive chairman with a mandate to help Whitman run a sprawling $120 billion empire with over 300 000 employees, tried to assure disillusioned investors by saying HP is making a fresh start with a new CEO and - crucially - a virtually revamped board of directors.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has seized the assets of a man accused of running a series of online scams worth an estimated $450 million, writes V3.co.uk.

The FTC believes that Jesse Willms was the man behind 10 different companies which took advantage of hidden charge clauses to defraud users on items ranging from pharmaceuticals to dietary supplements and personal care items.

According to the FTC, Willms scammed users by making free trial offers for a number of items with hidden “negative option”, charges. Users who thought they were signing up for free trial offers were then charged an $80 monthly fee which had to be opted out of.

Microsoft hopes federal agents will bring to justice one of the world's most notorious spammers, known to the company only as Cosma2k, reports Cnet.

According to Microsoft, Cosma2k is the handle of the alleged ringleader of the Rustock botnet, which earlier this year was the purveyor of more e-mail spam than any other network in the world, sending as many as 30 billion messages a day at its peak.

In March, Microsoft worked with federal law enforcement agents to shut down the Rustock botnet. Earlier this month, the company won a summary judgment against the unnamed defendants that allegedly ran the network. Now, the company is turning the evidence it has gathered over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

TalkTalk is the most complained about provider of broadband and phone services, according to the latest data from industry regulator Ofcom, says the BBC.

From April to June, it topped the list of angry customer correspondence, while Virgin Media attracted the fewest complaints.

However, Ofcom noted TalkTalk had got better since its last report.