Global monthly unique visitors to MailOnline grew to 199,414,263 in December 2014 -- an increase of 1.4% month-on-month and 23.6% year-on-year -- and 38 million more than it reached in the same month in 2013. In December 2014 the site attracted, on average, 12.2 million global daily uniques and 12,243,627 daily unique visitors to the Web site and apps, an increase of 24.8% year-on-year. MailOnline UK recorded more than 60 million monthly unique visitors and more than 5 million average daily unique visitors.

Hutchison Whampoa, a smaller brand in the UK, will rebrand O2. On YouGov's BrandIndex -- a combined evaluation of consumer's perception of quality, value, reputation and satisfaction, O2 comes first among a list of 11 mobile operators with a score of 11.3. The brand is also a leader in "awareness" on the brand-measuring tool, with a score of 91.5. In comparison, Three is much smaller and a weaker brand. Three's index score is 1.3 coming in seventh place on the list of 11. 'Awareness' of the brand measures at 74.5.

A British freelance director could be in line for a GBP660,000 windfall if an ad he made for GBP10 is screened during the Super Bowl. James Bedford, 40, beat off competition from 5,000 clips around the world to be named as the only Briton in the final ten. The 30-second entry sees James, who acts in the video himself, angling at a lake in Longparish near Andover, Hants, while eating a packet of Doritos crisps. With a comedic musical backdrop, a fish then leaps out of the lake and bounds toward James, before they both start screaming at each other.

Google took almost three years to disclose to WikiLeaks that it had handed over emails and other digital data belonging to three of its staffers to the U.S. government, under a secret search warrant issued by a federal judge. WikiLeaks has written to Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, to protest that the search giant only revealed the warrants last month, having been served them in March 2012. In the letter, WikiLeaks says it is "astonished and disturbed" that Google waited more than two-and-a-half years.

Sapient shareholders have been given an extension to accept Publicis Groupe's $3.7bn buyout for the fourth time. The deadline, which was previously Thursday 22 January, has been changed to 5 February 2015. Previous delays in closing the deal have been blamed on the additional time needed to deal with U.S. regulatory requirements, with a Publicis statement claiming additional time is needed "for the satisfaction of the CFIUS Condition and the FOCI Mitigation Plan Condition."

Russ Lidstone, the chief executive of Havas Worldwide London, is leaving the agency amid a restructuring designed to increase collaboration with its sister agency, Havas Work Club. Havas Worldwide London and Havas Work Club will come together in the newly formed Club Havas Partnership in London. The new structure is being put in place to make it easier for Havas Worldwide London and Havas Work Club to organise themselves into client-centric teams.

McDonald's experienced a 7% decline in global sales in 2014, with profits plummeting 15% -- but a European fourth-quarter sales decline was helped by "positive comparable sales and operating income" in the UK. The fast food giant, which is being hit hard by healthier consumer eating habits and growing demand for alternatives to burgers, was reporting its fourth-quarter and full-year results ending 31 December. Across Europe, fourth-quarter comparable sales declined 1.1% and operating income decreased 14%.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is calling for a ban on junk food adverts being shown before the 9 pm watershed to protect children from making unhealthy choices. According to a new survey carried out by the charity 70 percent of parents with children ages 4 to 16 have been pestered to buy junk food advertised on TV. The BHF polled over 2000 UK parents with children ages 16 and under, and found that about 43 percent of parents with children ages 4 to 16 say they are badgered at least once a week.

Twitter has told its most popular users to stop posting Instagram links. Since 2012, Instagram pulled support for the functionality that showed Instagram photos within tweets. Since then, pictures posted from the Facebook-owned picture sharing site have shown up as links, which must then be opened in a browser or with a client. A batch of Twitter's high-profile users received a prompt telling them to post pictures directly through Twitter, so that they show up in their followers' timelines.

Mobile network Three is set to acquire its rival O2 for more than GBP10bn in a deal that consumer groups fear could increase prices. The merger will catapult Hutchison from Britain's smallest network operator to its largest. Three's 7.5 million customer base will swell to 31.5 million and the number of mobile network owners in the UK will fall from four to three.