Christopher Saunders

Web portal Yahoo! is beefing up its efforts to woo film studios as advertising clients, signing an agreement with independent house Artisan Pictures and opening an office closer to Hollywood. In its first push for Artisan, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based site said it would begin promoting the upcoming college party comedy “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,” starring […]

Recruiting site Monster is planning a move into local markets nationwide in a bid to compete with regional job sources, beginning next month. The company, a unit of New York-based recruitment and yellow pages ad giant TMP Worldwide , plans to unveil the first of more than 100 local job sites on April 1, beginning […]

In addition to potentially shuttering online casino sites, the proposed extension of a 40-year-old interstate gambling law also could have a withering effect on Internet advertising. On Tuesday, a U.S. House subcommittee voted to revise the 1961 Wire Act, which bans interstate betting, so that it would apply to Internet gambling. While the vast majority […]

Los Angeles-based online ad network L90 said that federal regulators are questioning it concerning its past reporting of revenues, specifically transactions with troubled Web real estate play Homestore.com . L90 said in early February that the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun an investigation into its finances, but declined to go into specifics. That investigation, […]

An online marketer accused by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of false advertising has been forced by a federal court to suspend operations. The London-based company, doing business as TLD Network Ltd., Quantum Management Ltd., and TBS Industries, hawked top-level domain names like “.Brit” and “.Scot.” The problem is that not only is the […]

In a bid to improve its results and better compete with rivals, paid listings search engine LookSmart said it plans to acquire privately-held rival WiseNut. Through an all-stock deal, San Francisco-based LookSmart will offer about $9.25 million in stock for the smaller, seven-month-old firm. It is uncertain when the deal will close. When it does, […]

Continuing efforts to focus on technology, online ad giant DoubleClick said it planned to sell its e-mail list services unit to database marketer infoUSA . Terms were not disclosed of the sale of the unit, which will remain based in New York. Most of the group’s 19 employees are expected to join Walter Karl, the […]

Internet Security Systems is taking the wraps off its first broadcast ad campaign in a bid to address business managers’ need for anti-hacker solutions. The ads aim to highlight the Atlanta-based firm’s software and services, which protect businesses’ networks, servers and workstations from unauthorized intrusions, by focusing on the myriad threats faced by IT managers. […]

Amid growing questions surrounding L90’s accounting practices and the surprise departure of its two top executives, the Los Angeles-based ad network and Web publisher eUniverse has opted to terminate their $50 million merger agreement. Details surrounding the scrapped merger are slim. In January, eUniverse agreed to buy L90 in a complex and unusual transaction that […]

Ad network and technology player 24/7 Real Media said it sold its Latin American operations to the unit’s management and regional investors, in a move to cut costs. Now, a Brazilian group comprised of management and local investors will own the unit, which is to be called Realmedia Latin America, and which has offices in […]

There’s a number to quantify the online ad sector’s woes during the past year, and it’s 14.7 percent — the industry’s total drop in ad spending from 2000, according to researcher CMRi, a unit of Taylor Nelson Sofres. New York-based CMRi said that Internet ad spending for 2001 totaled $2.5 billion, down from $2.87 billion […]

Larger online ad units introduced last spring by the Interactive Advertising Bureau are continuing to gain traction despite a slow start, according to findings from Web researcher Jupiter Media Metrix. A year after the New York-based IAB introduced the standardized skyscraper ad, the so-called “medium rectangle” and “large rectangle,” Jupiter said the new formats now […]