Facebook lost a crucial legal battle Friday as a Paris court ruled the social network can be sued in France over its decision to remove the account of a French user who posted a photo of a famous 19th-century nude painting.

The ruling by the Paris appeals court could set a legal precedent in France, where Facebook has more than 30 million regular users. It can be appealed to France's highest court.

Twitter shares skidded Thursday after its quarterly update failed to ease concerns that the messaging platform's growth initiatives are sputtering.

In early Wall Street trade, Twitter shares fell 4.4 percent to $14.32, extending their long decline and hitting fresh lows since the social network group went public in 2013.

The age-old quest for love is moving inexorably online for young and old Americans alike -- whether this means swiping on their phone for a hot date, or using matchmaking sites to find the perfect mate.

The 18 to 24 crowd has warmed to smartphone apps like Tinder that help them spot a match among a crowd of strangers. And the over-55 age group is growing more comfortable about meeting new love interests via dating sites.

The Internet is now a growing and varied market place for trading illegal drugs in Europe, the European Union's watchdog agency said on Thursday.

"Almost any kind of illegal drug can be bought today on the Internet and delivered by mail, with no face-to-face contact between buyer and dealer," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship.

Drivers of London's traditional black cabs blocked some of the city's busiest streets Wednesday in a protest at the lack of regulations imposed on Uber.

Thousands of drivers brought their vehicles to a standstill around Parliament Square and Whitehall, near the Houses of Parliament, tooting their horns at regular intervals to make their discontent clear.

Twitter revamped its timeline Wednesday, allowing the "best" tweets to rise to the top, despite warnings of a revolt from members loyal to the real-time flow of the messaging platform.

The tweaked format aims to inject new life into the struggling one-to-many messaging service by moving away from a pure chronological timeline to one determined by algorithm, as used by social network leader Facebook.

Highschooler Nao Noguchi is a perfect illustration of why Japanese camera sales have plunged the past few years -- she uses her smartphone for everything and cannot understand why anyone would bother with a separate device for photos.

"It is easy to take your smartphone out of your pocket if you want to take a picture of someone or something. And you can send the pictures to friends quickly" on social media, said the 17-year-old on a day trip to Tokyo's historic Asakusa district with her friend Rina.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled a new cybersecurity "national action plan" calling for an overhaul of aging government networks and a high-level commission to boost security awareness.

The announcement responds to an epidemic of data breaches and cyber attacks on both government and private networks in recent years, and passage last year of a cybersecurity bill that aims to facilitate better threat sharing.

India's telecom regulator on Monday dealt a blow to Facebook's plans to offer free mobile Internet through its controversial Free Basics service, by outlawing differential pricing for data packages.

Facebook has suffered a fierce backlash in India from "net neutrality" advocates. 

Shocking images of a Taiwan apartment complex felled like a tree by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake have highlighted what is needed to build a structure that can withstand seismic shocks.

Like Taiwan, Japan is quake-prone -- it suffers about a fifth of the world's most powerful tremors. It has used a mix of ancient and modern technologies to make its buildings increasingly quake-proof.