Anonymous hacker halted the YouTube channel of software giant Microsoft, removing all its videos and posting solicitations for sponsorships.

Socialmedia site Mashable reportedly at least four videos have been uploaded to the account, all time-stamped within two hours.

A fifth video was apparently removed. The video, “Garry’s Mod – Escape the Box," featured what appeared to be an animated gunman shooting at the inside of a construction box.

The channel’s description reads, “I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/."

YouTube is a unit of Google, Inc.

“Our investments in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia in general are long-term initiatives. We believe in the Philippines and we believe in Southeast Asia,” Mr. Persaud added.
Adam Smith, Google’s director of product management, noted how popular the site is in the Philippines.

“Filipinos account for a lot of views in the Southeast Asia with tens of millions of views in a day,” Mr. Smith said.

Yesterday’s launch was YouTube’s 34th localized service and the first in Southeast Asia, Mr. Smith said.

“With our launch here, we will improve the experience for Filipinos to highlight what is relevant [to them],” he added.

Mr. Smith noted how over three billion videos are viewed globally in a day and about 48 hours of videos are uploaded every minute.

“YouTube’s platform is for everyone and for anything ... By being an open platform, it is able to connect the world together, even allowing for the government to connect to its citizens,” he said.

The localized service will allow for monetization of video views in the Philippines, said Gautam Anand, Google’s director of content partnerships in the Asia-Pacific.

“Content providers have always been able to monetize views ... but with the [localized service launched] we could start monetizing views originating from the Philippines,” Mr. Anand said. source: bworldonline