Emily Steel

Washington policy makers, long concerned about how marketers use consumers' personal data to their guide sales pitches on the Internet, have stepped up scrutiny of the increasingly sophisticated ad-targeting techniques used in other media, ranging from mobile phones to TV commercials to the ads consumers get in their mail boxes.

Eager to expand use of the Web to advertise their products, pharmaceutical giants, including Eli Lilly and Pfizer, are heading to Washington this week to call on the Food and Drug Administration to provide guidelines for marketing prescription drugs online.

Behind the scenes of a recent online shopping trip, Blue Kai , a startup company that collects Internet user data, was tracking when a Web surfer browsed for electronics on eBay, searched for cruises and checked out snowboards.

Kraft Foods, Greyhound Lines and Capital One Financial have bought some strange ads on the Internet lately. What's so strange about them is that they're invisible.

Twitter said a cyberattack took down the service for about two hours.

The Florida Elections Commission has decided a mayoral candidate's ads on Google and Facebook appear to violate the state's election law because they don't include a disclaimer that indicates who bought them.

As the impact of digital advertising on consumer privacy comes under scrutiny, AT&T is taking a stance in support of stricter standards. In its testimony Thursday at a House subcommittee hearing on the issue, the telecommunications heavyweight is expected to advocate more transparency and consumer control in the fast-growing field of targeted ads.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, US online-ad spending grew 10.6% in 2008, its slowest rate since 2002. The data suggest the recession is having a significant impact on one of the few drivers of robust growth in media and advertising.

A decade ago, when CBS struck a comprehensive $6 billion, 11-year pact with the NCAA for the rights to 89 NCAA properties, including the men's basketball tournament, it was considered one of the most bloated sports deals in television. Now, not so much.

MySpace plans to announce Monday that it is adopting a new video-identifying technology that will attempt to resolve copyright issues and boost ad revenue from some of the video clips users upload to the social-networking site.