A US federal judge in California ruled Monday that Facebook will have to face a class action suit over allegations it violated users' privacy by using a facial recognition tool on their photos without their explicit consent.

Facebook took out full-page ads in European newspapers Monday to trumpet tough new EU legislation that promises "more data protection for you", as the company seeks to win back trust following a damaging privacy scandal.

The new law, set to come into effect on May 25, aims to give users more control over how their personal information is stored and used online, with big fines for firms that break the rules.

Sensing the Facebook scandal has shifted the transatlantic winds, the EU is asserting itself as a forward-looking regulator rather than a retrograde bulwark against Silicon Valley's innovative might.

After years of mounting concern, the European Union will introduce tough new data protection rules next month, which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg himself has welcomed in the face of the latest scandals. 

A Moscow court on Friday ruled to block the popular messaging app Telegram in Russia, after it refused to give state security services access to private conversations. 

Under fire for the worst privacy debacle in his company's history, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted away often-aggressive questioning from lawmakers who accused him of failing to protect the personal information of millions of Americans from Russians intent on upsetting the U.S. election.

During some five hours of Senate questioning Tuesday, Zuckerberg apologized several times for Facebook failures, disclosed that his company was "working with" special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian election interference and said it was working hard to change its own operations after the harvesting of users' private data by a data-mining company affiliated with Donald Trump's campaign.

Some of the most popular music videos on YouTube including mega-hit "Despacito" momentarily disappeared Tuesday in an apparent hacking.

Lost amid a flurry of Facebook announcements about privacy settings and data access is a much more fundamental question: Is Facebook really changing its relationship with users, or just tinkering around the edges of a deeper problem — its insatiable appetite for the data it uses to sell ads?

The popular messaging app Telegram risks being blocked in Russia after refusing demands to hand over its encryption keys to give the FSB security service access to users' data.

Russia's telecoms watchdog on Friday asked a Moscow court to block the popular messaging app Telegram after the expiry of a deadline for it to give the state security services access to private conversations.

Facebook revealed Wednesday that tens of millions more people might have been exposed in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal than previously thought and said it will restrict the user data that outsiders can access.

Those developments came as congressional officials said CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify next week, while Facebook unveiled a new privacy policy that aims to explain the data it gathers on users more clearly — but doesn't actually change what it collects and shares.