Walt Disney Co. unveiled a program on Tuesday to let preteens create personal mini Web sites like MySpace’s very popular social networking site for older teens and young adults, with parental controls it hopes will create a safe haven.

The Disney feature, called Disney Xtreme Digital, or Disney XD, is aimed at kids under 14, with parents getting control over Internet activities, Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online, said in an interview.

A chat feature requires parental approval for kids to go beyond trading canned messages designed to prevent users from revealing personal information, or from using profanity.

Kids can gather games, videos and music files from Disney’s promotions-rich Web site and place them on a page that they decorate with a selection of motifs from the company’s rich character library.

Yanover said the feature limits kids to using Disney content on their Web sites, and would allow parents to monitor interaction. At the same time, Disney can protect its image on the freewheeling Web, he said.

The founders of Digg.com – which has been rocked by an unprecedented user revolt over the release of an HD-DVD decryption code – accepted sponsorship from the organization behind HD-DVD last year.

Episodes of the DiggNation video show were sponsored by the HD DVD Promotion Group. DiggNation is produced by Revision3, a company run by Digg founders, Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose. Rose is also a co-host of the DiggNation show. The image below shows the HD DVD logo displayed at the beginning of one such episode.

During the past 24 hours, Digg administrators have apparently deleted dozens of stories which included references to the HD DVD decryption code. These included one story which appeared poised to become the most popular ever seen on Digg, with almost 16000 votes within 20 hours. Administrators have also apparently begun deleting stories criticizing their actions, and also banned numerous members – according to angry statements posted by Digg users on the site and elsewhere.

Cerulean Studios are the makers of Trillian, an instant messaging consolidation application that supports IRC, ICQ, AIM and MSN protocols. In its latest version of Trillian, the company fixed three vulnerabilities in the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) module that could have been exploited remotely and given attackers the ability to intercept private conversations or execute code, security researchers at iDefense Labs reported.

Researchers at IM security provider Akonix Systems said the number of malicious code attacks over IM networks is on the rise. Akonix tracked 38 such attacks during April, including IM worms such as Pykse, Samo and Tiotua.

Joost, the video-on-demand program created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, announced its commercial launch on Tuesday.

The software, which is based on a peer-to-peer model, is no longer in a private beta test, according to a release from the company. Existing beta testers, who now need to upgrade to a new version of the program, can invite an unlimited number of people to download the Joost console.

The latest version of the software includes commercial content from 32 advertising partners, such as Coca-Cola, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Nike, whose partnerships with Joost were announced earlier this week.

Despite the expanded availability and commercial partnerships, the new version of Joost is still considered to be a beta test. The service remains free.

Dell is trying a second time to sell personal computers with Linux preinstalled, this time using the up-and-coming Ubuntu version of the open-source operating system.

At the end of May, the No. 2 PC maker will begin selling some consumer-focused laptop and desktop models with Ubuntu’s new “Feisty Fawn” version of Linux installed, Dell spokesman Kent Cook said. The company announced the Linux move on Tuesday on its IdeaStorm site, launched in February to gather feedback directly from customers about what they want.

“Today, we are excited to tell you that Dell will begin offering Canonical’s latest version, Ubuntu 7.04, as an option on select Dell consumer models in the U.S. in the coming weeks,” the company said in its announcement.

Dell also announced that it has improved its Linux forum and has given it prominent placement on its Dell Forums Web page.

Google Inc. on Monday filed a response to Viacom Inc.’s copyright infringement lawsuit over Google’s massively popular video-sharing sharing site YouTube, arguing that the site’s activities are legal.

Viacom had sued Google on March 13, claiming that YouTube has used digital technology to “willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale,” facilitating the unauthorized viewing of many pieces of Viacom’s programing from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

In a response filed in federal court in New York late Monday, Google said that YouTube respects the importance of copyrights and goes above and beyond what is required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives Web hosts protection from copyright lawsuits so long as they comply with requests to remove unauthorized material.