The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing about online privacy next Wednesday, Chairman (Jay) Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said today. "I want to know if the privacy protections we have in place are enough, or whether Congress needs to step in and do more," Rockefeller said in a statement announcing the hearing. The committee will examine the collection and use of consumer information, "some of it potentially very sensitive and private in nature," the lawmaker's office said.

Recommendation engine StumbleUpon has secured $17 million in a second-round of funding from Accel Partners, August Capital, DAG Ventures, First Round Capital and Sherpalo Ventures. The company said it plans to invest the new capital in its core discovery technology, expand to new platforms and grow the employee base. StumbleUpon was acquired in 2007 by eBay for $75 million before being sold back to its founders two years later. Since then, the company says its service, which suggests Web sites for people to discover based on preferences, has doubled its registered user base to more than 14 million. Here's the …

California sports gear company K-Swiss and is using its Tubes footwear ambassador Kenny Powers in a new campaign around March Madness called Tournageddon. The effort pre-launched last month when the Powers character played by Danny McBride in the HBO series "Eastbound & Down," urged people to fill out tourney selections before the March 17 tipoff of the tournament's first game. During the selection Powers offer uncensored assessments of every team and matchup. He will also do recaps and previews of tournament games. Links to join Tournageddon will be available on Yahoo! and via K-SWISS.com and the K-SWISS …

In an unusual step, cross-platform mobile app store GetJar has purged the Opera Mini browser from its catalog following the launch of its own app store Monday. The Opera Mobile Store is accessible through its mobile browser software on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and other smartphoens and powered by mobile app provider Appia. "The simple problem is that Opera mini decided to include a competing app store in its browser," explained GetJar Patrick Mork in a note to GetJar customers. "Although we don't have any issue with this in principle, in practice it means that consumers might start using this …

National Public Radio just reported that NPR President-CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned, following another in a series of embarrassing incidents for the public radio service: an undercover expose of its top fundraiser, Ron Schiller (no relation) who was videotaped slamming conservatives and questioning their support for federal funding of NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/09/134388981/npr-ceo-vivian-schiller-resigns?ps=rs

Rogers, AR-based digital agency Rockfish this morning unveiled a new venture capital division focusing on nurturing new enterprises developing digital technology in consumer Internet, mobile and retail sectors. The aptly named Rockfish Brand Ventures will provide start-ups with capital funding, as well as technology and marketing support. Rockfish Founder-CEO Kenny Tomlin said the new unit hopes to incubate ventures that develop innovative technologies that will benefit Rockfish’s roster of digital advertising clients. Rockfish, which was named OMMA magazine’s Web design and development agency of the year for 2010, handles Walmart, Sam's Club, Cisco, Procter & Gamble, Tyson Foods and …

Hubspot announced Tuesday it secured a $32 million Series D funding round from Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Salesforce.com. HubSpot Cofounder Brian Halligan wrote in a blog post the company plans to invest in research and development that supports "inbound marketing," which taps optimized search web content and applications. The $32 million round adds to the $33 million the company raised in three earlier funding rounds from the likes of deep-pocked VCs. Among them General Catalyst, Matrix Partners and Scale Venture Partners.

Austin, Tx. -- The bane of some marketing companies existence is the growing influence of those bottom line procurement officers. Unilever worldwide marketing chief, Keith Weed, speaking at the 4A's Transformation event, doesn't like it. He says, "some marketers have been hiding behind procurement." Weed says procurement executives should be responsible for signing off on big decisions -- but only after all meaningful and thoughtful decisions have been made by marketing executives. "We don't work in the commodity field," says Weed. "You want to use them in the right way."

Local mobile ad netwrok xAD has acquired the remaining assets of Go2 Media including the direct-to-consumer business,  mobile web properties, brands and search sites of the mobile media company. Through the purchase, xAD aims to expand the publisher base and reach for its mobile ad network. In particular, the company expects to boost its mobile audience with prime on-deck placement of its content across all major U.S. wireless carriers. xAD last year received $4 million in venture funding from Emergence Capital, which has backed companies including Salesforce.com, aQuantive and Doubleclick. Using proprietary search algorithms, xAd's LocalAdXchange is meant to …

Daily deal site LivingSocial has named Mitch Spolan as senior vice president of national sales, marking the latest high-level executive departure from Yahoo. Spolan, who led North American field sales for Yahoo, will lead development of LivingSocial's national accounts and expand its nationwide sales team to work with advertisers and marketers, the company said Tuesday. He will also focus on creating new opportunities to monetize LivingSocial's assets through "innovative, consumer-friendly advertising models." LivingSocial has emerged as a fast-rising challenger to Groupon, which the All Things D blog noted hired away another Yahoo sales exec--Lee Brown--in December to …