Adobe has upgraded its Flash Player to fix seven vulnerabilities in the graphics and video software widely used for interactive Web pages and banner advertisements.

Adobe classifies the patches as “critical” and advises people upgrade to the latest version, 9.0.124.0. All of the vulnerabilities could allow a hacker to execute code on a machine.

One of the vulnerabilities allowed Shane Macaulay to win a laptop in the PWN 2 OWN hacking contest at last month’s CanSecWest conference in Vancouver.

Macaulay, a researcher with the Security Objectives consultancy, used the Flash flaw to break into a machine running Windows Vista. He later said 90 percent of computers worldwide were vulnerable.

The head of Google in Brazil said Wednesday the Internet giant will take actions to stop child pornography and hate crimes on a social-networking Web site used here — but he did not offer to provide user information to officials.

Alexandre Hohagen’s declaration to a Brazilian Senate panel marked a step forward in efforts to block offensive material from the popular Orkut Web site.

Last August, federal prosecutors said Google failed to comply with requests to provide information about users who allegedly spread child pornography and hate speech against black people, Jews and homosexuals on Orkut.

Google eliminated the users from Orkut groups but refused to release information about them to authorities, arguing it is bound by U.S. laws guaranteeing freedom of speech.

About 55 percent of the 60 million-plus Orkut users worldwide are Brazilian.

Yahoo Inc and Time Warner Inc are “closing in” on a deal where Yahoo would merge with Time Warner’s AOL Internet unit, brushing aside Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo, a source familiar with the talks said on Wednesday.

The source confirmed a Wall Street Journal story saying Yahoo would receive a cash investment from Time Warner in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the combined Yahoo-AOL business. The deal would exclude AOL’s fading dial-up Internet access business and value AOL at about $10 billion.

Also Yahoo Inc is in advanced talks to carry Web search advertising from Google Inc as part of a search for potential alternatives to being bought by Microsoft Corp, a source familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday.

Telephone service provider Verizon Communications Inc brought its battle for video customers to court on Wednesday, with a lawsuit accusing rival Time Warner Cable Inc of false advertising.

Verizon said Time Warner Cable’s TV ads falsely imply that Verizon’s FiOS video service requires a satellite dish, that it does not include phone, broadband and video, and that Time Warner’s network is better, in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“We feel the lawsuit is without merit and we look forward to defending against it in the appropriate venue,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley said.