Officials from the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Department of Commerce will testify Wednesday morning at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing about privacy and data security. The hearing will examine data collection and "whether consumers are adequately protected under current law," Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said on Monday. Rockefeller recently introduced legislation that would require companies to respect consumers' requests to opt out of online tracking.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has been named "2011 Chief Executive of the Year." Nominations are garnered from readers of Chief Executive magazine. The 10 most frequently cited nominations were evaluated and a winner voted upon at a meeting of a peer Selection Committee, which took place earlier this year in New York City. Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant was last year's honoree. "The turnaround and triumph of Ford is an amazing success story, due largely to his talents, leadership and courage," said Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant and 2010 CEO of the Year. "It's a turnaround not only of an American …

Nigel Morris, CEO of Aegis Media North America, has picked up the rest of the Americas. As part of reorganization this week of Aegis Media's global operations, Morris picked up Latin America, and the title, CEO Aegis Media Americas. In a related move, Iberia and Latin America chief Jose Luis de Rojas is leaving. Andre Andrade, currently CEO Aegis Media Portugal, was named CEO of Aegis Media Iberia, reporting to Simon Francis, CEO Aegis Media EMEA. Aegis said the changes form part of a "wider regional restructure across the whole of Aegis Media which sees the company move …

Video advertising sold as pre-roll but running in a banner unit or somewhere other than before the start of a user-selected video has long been a problem in online video. So-called fake pre-roll also often auto-start or auto-play in violation of IAB guidelines for video advertising. To help combat that issue, video marketing company TubeMogul has added a feature to its demand-side platform (DSP) dubbed PlaySafe designed to block sites that run fake pre-roll. If detected, the system automatically shifts budgets to legitimate sites. In a recent test of 7,000 sites, TubeMogul came across 400 sites running fake pre-roll, …

Yahoo has teamed with Collective Digital Studio to launch a new original Web series focused on fashion and hosted by Cat Deeley of Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance." Episodes of the new Yahoo show called "In the Dressing Room," will run twice-weekly for 10 weeks and feature beauty and fashion tips from Deeley as well as a contest allowing viewers to win a personal item from her wardrobe. "In the Dressing Room" is the latest addition to Yahoo's original programming lineup that includes "Primetime in No Time" and "The Daily Ticker" and which it says attracted an audience …

U.S. Local mobile advertising will grow from $404 million in 2010 to $2.8 billion in 2015, according to a new forecast by local media research firm BIA/Kelsey. A combination of self-serve tools and local sales efforts will help small and medium-sized businesses increasingly embrace mobile advertising. Growing mobile usage, tangible conversions and a shorter purchase funnel will help drive demand within display, search and SMS ad formats. BIA/Kelsey projects overall U.S. mobile ad spending will grow from $790 million in 2010 to $4 billion by 2015. This would makelocally-targeted mobile ads more than half of …

Social location service is putting a new twist on the daily deal craze with a new program that lets consumers request deals instead of waiting for deals to come to them. Think the group-buying version of "situations wanted" ads. Here's how Loopt u-Deals work, in the company's own words: 1. Create it. Pick the place and customize the deal request (choose the photo, pick the discount amount and add a deal description). 2. Make it happen. If the deal passes Loopt's review, then the deal will be in play. Now it falls to the user to rally local friends …

Chevrolet wants amateur filmmakers around the world to get their kicks on Route 66. The automaker is once again partnering with MOFILM in a contest to get submissions of 30-second ads to be featured in next year's Super Bowl XLVI. The automaker says during this year's Super Bowl XLV in January, the Camaro ad "Miss Evelyn's Wild Ride" by garnered with MOFILM competition last year made history as the most-watched television advertisement of all time. According to General Motors Nielsen estimated that 119,638,000 people watched the ad, in which two guys narrate an action scene featuring a young …

GroupM has introduced new mobile privacy guidelines for publishers aimed at limiting the amount of data collected and used in marketing campaigns. The recommendations call for mobile publishers to mask device Unique User Identification (UUID) mechanisms whenever possible to ensure a greater degree of consumer privacy, and clearly display privacy policies for consumer review. Publishers are also asked to explicitly state within privacy policies what information, including location and UUID, is being captured, paired with other data and/or shared with third parties. Further, consumers should also be allowed to opt out of behavioral targeting of …

Shazam, the company behind the popular music identification app of the same name, has raised $32 million in new funding led by Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers and Institutional Venture Partners, and including prior investor DN Capital. The London-based company said the financing will be used to fuel the continued growth and development of music discovery app as well as Shazam for TV, its initiative to integrate its service with TV content. To date, the company has partnered with networks including NBCUniversal and MTV on efforts allowing viewers to "Shazam" programming by downloading the app and …