Adblock Plus, the supposed scourge of the online advertising industry, has announced its intentions to be adopted by SMEs and public organisations to help protect them from malware and ease up bandwidth. Ben Williams of AdBlock Plus announced in a blog post with its latest update that it has been working for some time on a project it refers to as the "LSD project (for Large Scale Deployment)".

UK industry Web standards body JICWEBS has ramped up plans to root out online ad fraud, unveiling a set of standardised guidelines for media buyers. The guidelines provide details including what questions marketers should ask publishers and third-party inventory sources to equip them with what they need to stifle fraudulent activity and reduce the risk of their exposure to it. Although it is an ongoing issue, ad fraud remains rife across the industry and advertiser concern has heightened over the last year.

Royal Mail has appointed M&C Saatchi to create its first consumer campaign in nearly two years to help strengthen engagement and position it as a modern, innovative brand. M&C Saatchi beat Publicis UK, Mother and MWO to the GBP8 million account in a process that began in May. Ben Rhodes, Royal Mail's director of customer marketing, said: "With this campaign and the support of M&C Saatchi, our aim is to enhance and modernise our connection with the British public."

Vodafone has been particularly vocal in its opposition, raising concerns over a potential BT monopoly in the UK. The rival suggested the pair should be forced to give up a chunk of spectrum if the deal goes through and that broadband providers using BT's network infrastructure should have better wholesale rates. But BT's Gavin Patterson said: "The world is changing, with customers wanting access to the Internet on their terms."

New research by IPG Mediabrands agency Initiative finds that fathers ages 25 to 34 are more optimistic about the economy and more ambitious than men without children. That makes them a market that could be highly receptive to positive messages and open to discretionary spending. Indeed, 67% of millennial dads are confident about their personal economic situation compared with 59% of non-dads and 58% of mums, while 45% feel positive about the state of the economy compared to 40% of men without children.

Apple's launch of its new Spotify rival, Apple Music, could leave Britain's independent record labels "completely screwed" and struggling to survive. The Silicon Valley giant is demanding that record labels such as XL Recordings, the home of Adele, and Domino, the label behind the Arctic Monkeys, agree to a free three-month trial of Apple Music, during which they will receive no payment.The plan, only disclosed since the service was unveiled, has caused dismay among British labels.

BT has issued a fresh challenge to its pay-TV rival Sky with a deal to bring the American broadcaster of hit dramas "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" to the UK. The British arm of US channel AMC Networks will launch in September with a big draw being its "Walking Dead" spinoff, "Fear the Walking Dead." The channel, which will also show long-running hits "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men," is being made available for the first time in the UK to BT customers via its YouView pay-TV platform.

The head of the BBC World Service has said that its international television news channel must air sponsored programmes as well as advertising during commercial breaks, if it is to stem its financial losses. Fran Unsworth dismissed fears that viewers do not trust sponsored news content. "If that's what we now have to do to generate the bucks in this space, then so be it." Chris Bryant, the shadow culture secretary, warned: "If the BBC news brand has Coca-Cola or ketchup written all over it, it will have lost its essence."

J Walter Thompson's parent network, WPP, has acquired a "significant" minority stake in Hirschen Group, an independent agency group in Germany. Hirschen Group took revenues of EUR37.3 million (GBP26.9 million) last year and provides advertising, PR, public affairs, consulting and strategy services. It employs more than 500 people in nine offices since being founded in 1995 by Bernd Heusinger and Marcel Loko. Martin Blach joined as its chief executive in 2005. JWT currently employs 150 staff in Germany.

TV accounts for 65% of young people's total viewing, compared with the UK average of 81 percent, according to research by Thinkbox. The body said that 30% of 16- to 24-year-olds watch videos on tablets and smartphones -- double that of the average individual in the UK at 15%. The 'Truth about Youth' study compared young people viewing live TV, playback and video-on-demand services to online services including YouTube, DVDs and subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix.