News round up: Apple, Google, Facebook Inc, PPI mis-selling, European banks, China, Falkland Islands.

Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) new mobile operating system, iOS 6, will no longer include a YouTube app as a default part of the experience, in a major step which signifies another snub to Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG).

This follows the news earlier this year that the technology giant would be dropping Google Maps from the new version of its hugely popular iOS mobile operating system – and would be creating its own maps app instead.

An Apple spokesman said: "Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store." The de facto YouTube app will remain on the current Apple operating system, iOS 5, writes the Telegraph.

Facebook Inc

Companies advertising on Facebook will be forced to vet comments posted by members of the public, following a landmark ruling by an advertising watchdog in Australia. The Advertising Standards Board ruled that posts on Smirnoff’s Facebook page are effectively advertising, regardless of whether they were made by the company or a member of the public, and should therefore comply with advertising laws.

The judgment has already caused widespread concern in Australia and threatens to undermine Facebook’s advertising on a worldwide basis, as posts made by users in any country can appear on companies’ Facebook pages. Advertisers will have to factor the cost of vetting user comments into their plans for advertising on Facebook, whilst constant policing could also undermine the power of Facebook as an advertising platform, experts said, according to The Telegraph.

PPI mis-selling

Refunds of mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) are doing more to boost Britain’s stuttering economy than government initiatives to stimulate growth, official and bank data show. The UK’s five biggest banks have set aside almost 9bn pounds to cover claims for selling their customers loan insurance that was either not needed or could not be used, in one of the most costly consumer scandals on record. About 4.8bn pounds had already been paid out by the end of May – effectively acting as "helicopter money" dropped into the hands of those people who may be among the most likely to spend it, The Financial Times reports.

European banks

Some of the UK’s biggest listed companies are pulling money out of European banks and drawing up contingency plans for the break-up of the euro, amid growing fears over the future of the single currency. British Airways, pharmaceuticals giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as Royal Dutch Shell, are among those making emergency preparations as the Eurozone debt crisis escalates.

The news comes as two influential studies show confidence in the Eurozone has hit a three year low, with UK business leaders losing faith in the single market. The Sentix research group said its index measuring investor sentiment had fallen for the fifth straight month. The spotlight has moved to Italy after 15 of its biggest lenders saw their credit ratings slashed on Friday night and prime minister Mario Monti warned of the ‘psychological break-up of the euro,’ The Daily Mail says.

China

It was supposed to be the marketeer’s dream, a land of a billion consumers with rising spending power, a penchant for exotic Western products and little-developed local competition. But a quarter of a century after they entered the country, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and the other leading consumer goods groups appear to be failing in China as people shun their brands for locally made products. The top 50 multinationals had only 17% of the €110bn (£87bn) market at the end of 2010, compared with about a third of the market in Brazil, Russia and India, according to a report by the OC&C management consultancy.

Sales are still growing but foreign brands are losing market share, shedding one percentage point in 2009-10 — almost £1bn of business — as the top domestic brands gained two percentage points, The China Failure report says. The mighty multinationals are struggling to compete amid a vast, complex terrain, nimble local players and customers who find their products too strange or simply too expensive, The Times reports.

Falkland Islands

Argentina has set itself on another collision course with Britain by planning to use seized energy company YPF to search for oil around the Falkland Islands, according to reports. State-controlled YPF, formerly owned by Spain's Repsol, is teaming up with Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA to explore the area. "We discussed the need for oil and gas exploration in the territory and offshore areas, adjacent to the Falklands, but we have to analyze the costs and time," PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez Carreno told Argentine newspaper Pagina12.

The executive said he spoke with the president of YPF, Miguel Galuccio, in Buenos Aires last Wednesday. Argentina's move threatens to further antagonise the UK government on the 30th anniversary of the war the two fought over the Falkland Islands. Earlier this year the Argentine government sent a letter to 15 British and American banks threatening them with legal action for advising companies exploring for oil around the islands, The Telegraph says.