online advertising

Getting people to pay for news online at this point would be "like trying to force butterflies back into their cocoons," a new consumer survey suggests.

That was one of several bleak headlines in the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual assessment of the state of the news industry, released Sunday.

The project's report contained an extensive look at habits of the estimated six in 10 Americans who say they get at least some news online during a typical day. On average, each person spends three minutes and four seconds per visit to a news site.

Even if Google's stand against censorship leads it to close its search engine in China, the company still hopes to maintain other key operations in the world's most populous Internet market.

Google Inc. is in delicate negotiations with the Chinese government to keep its research center in China, an advertising sales team that generates most of the company's revenue in the country and a fledgling mobile phone business.

Both sides are torn by conflicting objectives.

Carol Bartz spent much of her first year as Yahoo Inc.'s chief executive rallying the troops and clearing the decks, often sounding like a salty drill sergeant as she vowed to whip the downtrodden Internet company back into shape.

For all the tough talk, Yahoo remains on shaky ground as Bartz marks her one-year anniversary as CEO on Wednesday.

Revenue has sagged even further since her hiring while Yahoo's share of the Internet lucrative search market has shriveled and the company's stock performance has lagged its most prominent peers.

Just days after finalizing its search and advertising agreement with Microsoft, Yahoo on Monday rolled out a beta version of a new consumer tool it hopes will appease growing concerns from privacy advocates. Dubbed Ad Interest Manager, Yahoo said the tool takes online advertising transparency to a new level to build user trust.

Essentially, Ad Interest Manager is a hub where Yahoo visitors can view a summary of their online activity at Yahoo and decide how much exposure they want to online advertising served via the Yahoo Ad Network.

The much anticipated FDA hearings on how pharma and medical device companies should be able to use the Internet and social media for promotion kicked off today and the presentation room at the NTSB was packed with formally dressed people with expectant faces, ready to participate in what most people consider one of the most important moments in the history of online advertising and promotion in the medical space.

As federal regulators take their first tentative steps toward policing the wild west of medical information online, pharmaceutical companies are pressing their case to market drugs via Google, Twitter and other Web sites.

Facebook ditched its Beacon program earlier this week, deciding instead to partner with Nielsen on a less-controversial vehicle to push advertising to its social-networking masses.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced a multi-year strategic alliance with Nielsen to help marketers make better use of the Internet to develop and market new products. The alliance leverages Facebook's global consumer reach with Nielsen's market-research savvy to offer marketers deeper consumer insights.

The Web sites computer users visit, the search queries they conduct and the products they buy -- along with all the personal details they reveal on social networking pages -- can give companies insight into what Internet ads they might be interested in seeing.

But privacy watchdogs warn that too many people have no idea that Internet marketers are tracking their online habits and then mining that data to serve up targeted pitches -- a practice known as behavioral advertising.

Now that Apple has once again passed Google in market value, can the consumer-electronics maker maintain its lead?

While Apple's capitalization has risen above that of Google for short bursts in the past, it has remained higher since July 22. As of Aug. 11, Apple was worth $145.87 billion, compared with Google's $143.40 billion. This could be a momentary shift in Wall Street's whims -- like when Cisco Systems briefly surpassed Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company in 2000.

Google has made several enhancements to its anti-malvertising site to help its ad network customers prevent attempts to distribute malware through advertising.

The web giant launched an initial custom search engine at the beginning of the year, which is designed to allow ad networks to perform quick background checks on prospective advertisers to minimize the risk of malware.

"It checks a variety of independent, third party sites that track possible attempts to distribute malware through advertising," said a statement on the site.