Advertising | featured news

Toyota dealers in five southeast states have pulled their commercials off ABC TV local affiliates, complaining about the coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News and its chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

The ad agency representing the 173 dealers told ABC affiliates last week that the shift was due to "excessive stories on the Toyota issues." The dealers shifted their commercial time buys to non-ABC stations in the same markets, "as punishment for the reporting," according to an ABC station manager.

Google's fourth-quarter earnings soared as the Internet giant posted strong growth in advertising clicks and avoided big charges that weighed down prior-year results.

No one clicks on display ads. Why? There's room for improvement.

Kim Kardashian, Soulja Boy and Lauren Conrad reportedly bank big bucks tweeting. In an effort to drive unemployed people totally insane, The Daily Beast compiled a list of how much celebrities get paid to Tweet. We already told you that Kim Kardashian makes at least $10,000 every time she tweets about a company. And let me refresh your memory: You were majorly bummed out about it.

Surprise. Apple has agreed to purchase mobile advertising startup Quattro Wireless for $275 million, All Things Digital reported Monday. That Quattro would be targeted after Google bought rival mobile ad seller AdMob for $750 million by Google last year is no surprise.

Is Google simply buying its way into the mobile advertising market via its $750 million acquisition of AdMob? That’s what two consumer groups allege in a letter sent to the FTC today, as the organization continues to review the deal.

The Federal Trade Commission has been gently pressuring the Internet advertising industry to reveal more information to consumers about how it collects data and targets ads.

Video Professor continues to be angry that I called them a scam in my original Scamville post. They've gotten nowhere reaching out to me directly (more on that below), so now they've tried complaining to the Washington Post, which has syndicated our content since 2008.

Online advertising revenues in the U.S. seem to be stabilizing. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers released third-quarter figures showing that online advertising in the U.S. approached $5.5 billion, up 1.7 percent from the second quarter of 2009, but still down 5.4 percent from the same quarter a year ago (which is in line with the losses during the first half of the year). As you can see in the chart, there was a big drop-off after the fourth quarter of last year, and the first three quarters of this year have been flat.