Internet advertising jumped by 14.4% in 2011 to reach GBP4.8 billion, notes the report from the Internet Advertising Bureau, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Online and mobile advertising recorded the biggest increase in internet advertising in five years - a GBP687 million rise on the previous year. Banner ads on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn registered a 75% increase and reached GBP240 million last year, fueled by increasing popularity of social media networks, which account for 27% of all the time spent online in the UK in 2011.

Young people heading into the clubs in England and Northern Ireland are being asked to show their Facebook accounts on their smartphones to verify who they are. Nick Pickles, from the campaign group Big Brother Watch, said he was against the idea of checking Facebook accounts. Some door staff have contacted Newsbeat to defend the idea of checking Facebook profiles. They say the consequences of letting someone in who's underage are serious, with the potential for a large fine.

Conservative MP Louise Mensch has condemned 'immoral and misogynistic' Twitter users after she was subjected to abuse following the findings of the Commons media committee report into phone hacking. Stuart Hyde, Cumbria Police chief constable, who has national responsibility with the Association of Chief Police Officers for e-crime, said today, "I have read the comments made about Louise and it is sexist bigotry at its worst." Speaking today on BBC Radio 4, Mensch, who as well as being an MP is a successful author, said the "abuse directed at women is always sexual or violent."

The cost is GBP4.99 a month in the UK for web-only streaming, and GBP9.99 a month for unlimited streaming and mobile access. This is comparable with Spotify's pricing. The weird thing about this "launch" is that usually a company would trumpet a launch in these significant, major European markets. The digital music service is offering a seven-day free trial of unlimited listening.

New European regulations that would require more stringent reporting and prevention of data breaches "will put the UK entrepreneurs and startups at a real competitive disadvantage to U.S. digital business." The open letter to Minister of State Lord McNally, Small Business and Enterprise Minister Mark Prisk and Communications Minister Ed Vaizey was signed by small business reps, including the Coalition for a Digital Economy, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Direct Marketing Association.

Britain's Internet giants have declared their intention to oppose an automatic block on online porn by banding together, saying it should not be up to them to police the Web. But the MP leading the campaign to protect children from hardcore porn on the web said she thought the ISPs were against the scheme because it would hit their commercial interests. Claire Perry added that it was time for the internet to be regulated in the same way as television.

Thanks to its role in the sub-prime crisis and its British tax concerns and big bonuses, the financial services giant may not be the most popular corporate entity online. Imagine having to spin tweets such as this recent one: "Goldman Sachs and the FED are on the same team. The team of ripping off the working poor blind." Will Dean says it's about time GS got properly established online: "the very unofficial @GSElevator, an account that purports to tweet chats overheard in the firm's lifts, has 250,000 followers while the official GS account (tweets so far: 0) has a measly …

All three main political parties are failing miserably in their use of new digital channels to reach voters, according to a new Digital MOT report released Wednesday by UK advertising agency Cheetham Bell JWT in the run-up to the local elections on Thursday. The agency scored the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems on their use of a range of digital media including website effectiveness, use of social media, accessibility compliance and search engine activity. All three parties failed to meet the pass rate of 60 points.

In a briefing in Melbourne to editorial staff at The Age, The Sunday Age and theage.com.au website, Garry Linnell said a new editorial model to be introduced from July 1 would reverse the ratio of print staff to digital staff. He briefed Fairfax's Sydney editorial staff on Monday about the coming changes. Fairfax has for several months run an editorial review project in Sydney and Melbourne to determine how newsrooms and their staff will work as a digital media company. The first set of recommendations from that project will be released in the next four weeks ready for the July …

The scheme is set to be announced in a speech to the Publishers Association today by universities and science minister David Willetts. It comes in the wake of a growing campaign for open access in academic publishing, as cash-strapped universities face millions of pounds' costs each year to subscribe to research journals. Wales was brought in earlier this year to become an adviser on how Whitehall could make policy decisions more transparent, and will now advise on a project to set up a gateway to publicly-funded research on the web.