Posting a third consecutive year of gains, the Internet accounted for 5 percent of all U.S. ad dollars last year, up from 4 percent in 2004, according to a new report released Thursday by the
Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. For the year, online ad spending surged to $12.5 billion, marking a 30 percent gain over $9.6 billion in 2004, and an increase of more than
70 percent from $7.3 billion in 2003. Online ad spending more than doubled from $6 billion in 2002, the depths of the dot-com bust. -- Wendy Davis