In attempts to improve opportunities for advertisers and publishers on the mobile platform, Google is rolling out larger ad units for display on smartphones such as the iPhone and Android-enabled devices through its AdSense Mobile product. Announcing the feature in a blog post,

Earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to pharma companies , accusing them of violating regulations about presenting drug information to consumers in their search ads. Today, free market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute released a paper designed to influence the conversation about government regulation of pharma advertising online. In particular,

A few stories ClickZ's editors are reading: Did Viacom Find Smoking Gun in YouTube Case? YouTube managers may have known of the existence of unauthorized content on the site without acting on it. )CNET( Google Targeted in E-mail Scam Phishing scheme captures thousands of account names and passwords.

A few stories ClickZ's editors are reading: Microsoft Trumpets In-Game Ad Performance . Microsoft Advertising GM JJ Richards tackles what he says are misconceptions about the performance and effectiveness of Massive, the company's in-game ad network. )Microsoft Advertising blog( Can Google Stay on Top of the Web?

This YouTube video was doing the rounds last week, and was initially brought to my attention via Twitter. Essentially it's just a montage of "the funniest" videos from around YouTube, but it has attracted almost 2.2 million views since it was posted on September 13th - 700,000 more than when I first viewed it on Thursday. What interested me, however, is the fact the video was created to promote material by British band Hadouken. The video is sound tracked by their new single,

Over the past nine years out of ClickZ's 12-year history, Erin Brenner has been a guiding force here. As chief copy editor, she's played many roles. She's been a traffic cop, ensuring that online marketing practitioners who write ClickZ Experts columns file their copy on time - or risk receiving a stern warning from her. She's been an advocate for clear and consistent writing and a stickler for grammar's finer points. Most important,

A survey performed by the Creative Group, a recruiting agency, found that 34 percent of the advertising and marketing executives surveyed plan to hire in the coming 12 months. Another 55 percent said they plans to maintain current staffing levels. The skills in most demand? One in two said they plan to hire staff in four areas: Web design or production, creative or art direction, interactive, and account services. Least in demand?

The U.S. House may have an online privacy bill introduced as soon as November - that is, if Rep. Rick Boucher, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet comes through with what he says he hopes to accomplish before Congress goes into winter hibernation. "We are making rapid progress and hope to have a bill introduced before recess," he said in an interview with beltway pub The Hill on Tuesday.

If you haven't seen it already, Twitter has announced it's testing "Twitter Lists," essentially lists of users that can be categorized according to who they are or what they write about. According to a Twitter blog post yesterday, "The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts." In non-pretentious language, that means eventually anyone will be able to assemble a group of Twitterers, allowing people to easily follow all those accounts. So,

Apple continues to be the gold standard in rich online advertising. Best known for its takeovers of The New York Times and WSJ, the company's high production value display ads )No, that's not an oxymoron( for Mac, iPod and iPhone have appeared on a slew of other properties. The above ad on Wired gives interruptiveness a new name. Industry take note: If you're good enough, you can get away with that.

A few stories ClickZ's editors are reading: Warner, YouTube Near Deal on Music Videos )AdAge( CNN's Paid iPhone App Comes With Ads )AP( Huffington Post CEO: Revenue Must Match Site's Traffic )Beet.

Google is set to introduce sponsored location ads on its Maps product in Australia, following successful implementation of the ads on its Japanese site. Reports suggests markets such as the U.S. and the U.K. may follow. David Egan, general product manager at Google Australia, told the Sydney Morning Herald, "We get one million searches a year for railway stations. We're trying to figure out what things people might want. It could be a coffee shop or it could be a McDonald's.

Marketers are less likely to formally evaluate the performance of digital agencies than traditional shops, according to a survey of Association of National Advertisers members. Of 117 marketers who completed ANA's survey, 76 percent said they regularly conduct formal performance evaluations of traditional creative ad agencies and 68 percent said they do so for traditional media ad agencies. Only 47 percent said they conduct these reviews for digital agencies. The survey,

I'm not exactly sure what the Fiorina senatorial campaign is going for with the new CarlyforCalifornia site , but one thing's for sure: It's definitely not your typical political campaign site. Of course, at this point, it's just a splash page linking to a sign up page and donation page. "Contributions are raised for testing the waters purposes only at this time," states the small print. There's no info on how the potential candidate stands on the issues.

A couple stories ClickZ's editors are reading: Nasty Ad Slips Past Google Search ad for "Firefox - Official Site" actually points to firefox.mozilla-now.com, a site that dishonestly tries to get users to pay up to $2.50/month.

Its new relationship with Nielsen is a big deal for Facebook, which plans to use the resulting data to fight the perception its display ads aren't effective. But for agencies and their clients, the importance of the resulting research is unclear. Kelly Twohig, SVP, strategy director at Starcom Worldwide, noted this yesterday between sessions at Advertising Week. "They clearly don't feel they're getting their fair share of upper funnel spending," she told me.

A few stories ClickZ's editors are reading: Twitter's Biz Stone: No Ads in 2009 Focus is on getting commercial accounts up and running this year. Yahoo Trying to Sell Site Hosting Business Yahoo seeking up to $500 mln for its Web hosting services for small businesses. )Reuters( Comcast Takes on Hulu With Ad Blitz for Fancast )AdAge.

Video content and ad platform Brightcove apparently will not be acquired by Google or anyone else in the near future. In an interview with PaidContent , CEO Jeremy Allaire said "We're not for sale." The statement puts an end to a rumor that began last week with a tweet by Mark Glaser of PBS MediaShift to the effect that a deal was likely and would be valued at $500 to $700 million.

If you didn't catch "Mad Avenue Blues" on YouTube when it first appeared a few months ago, it's still worth checking out. The slideshow, set to the tune of the 1971 song, "American Pie," won over the crowd at the OMMA conference today. It's the work of Terence Kawaja, managing director at GCA Savvian. So bye, bye those big upfront buys.