Erika Nardini has joined AOL as vice president-head of marketing solutions for AOL Advertising, reporting to Jim Norton, senior vice president of AOL Advertising.

The Federal Trade Commission has cleared Google of violating antitrust laws by promoting its own services in its search results.

The Washington Post has announced plans to launch a video channel focused on politics this summer. Similar to video platforms like the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Live and Politico Live, the Post’s forthcoming channel will broadcast shows featuring the newspaper’s journalists and commentators as well as appearances by key newsmakers. The planned programming will total over 30 hours of air-time per month, with video content positioned prominently on both the home page and within articles. “As news consumers increasingly turn to video, a video channel centered on politics is a natural for The Post,” said Martin Baron, the newspaper’s …

Google’s Android platform was running on 53.7% of U.S. smartphones in November, up from 52.6% in August, according to the latest data from comScore. Apple’s share of the smartphone OS market increased slightly over the same period to 35%, while BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion, Microsoft and Symbian all continued to see their small slices of the market get even smaller. BlackBerry dropped a percentage point to 7.3%, Windows Phone fell to 3%, and Symbian to 0.5% in November. Among device manufacturers, Samsung increased its share of U.S. mobile phones to 26.9%, up 1.2 points, while Apple’s share rose …

The 451 Group, which operates 451 Research and the Uptime Institute, on Thursday announced acquiring mobile-focused research firm Yankee Group from Boston private equity firm Alta Communications. New York-based 451 Group said the move would extend its capabilities as a global research, advisory, data and certification firm. Started in 1970 as an independent technology research firm, Yankee Group in recent years has narrowed its scope to market research and analytics on consumer mobile usage. Under the deal, Yankee Group will operate as an independent division of the 451 Group, with Terry Waters continuing as CEO of the unit and …

Qatar-based Al Jazeera is near a deal to acquire Al Gore's and Joel Hyatt's Current TV, according to a report in The New York Times. Terms were not disclosed, but Al Jazeera reportedly would utilize Current as the base for launching a new U.S.-based channel, presumably dubbed Al Jazeera America.

Yahoo started 2013 on a positive note, closing above $20 a share on Wednesday for the first time since September 2008. The Web portal’s stock was buoyed by the broader market rally following the Fiscal Cliff deal reached Tuesday along with renewed investor optimism about Yahoo’s prospects under new CEO Marissa Mayer. Since taking over in July, Mayer has overseen the company’s $7 billion divestiture of half its stake in China-based Alibaba Group and solid third-quarter results. She has also identified mobile as a key growth area for Yahoo and begun taking steps to enhance its mobile offerings through the …

A California federal judge on Wednesday threw out part of Apple’s lawsuit against Amazon over use of the term App Store, barring Apple from bringing a false advertising claim against the online retail giant. The ruling granting Amazon’s motion for partial summary judgment, however, didn’t affect other claims against the company, including trademark infringement, according a Reuters report today. The Apple lawsuit filed in March 2011 accuses Amazon of misusing its “App Store” name through its launch of the Amazon Appstore for Android app storefront and related developer program. Apple has argued Amazon’s use of “Appstore” creates confusion …

Flurry last week reported iOS and Android device activations on Christmas Day nearly tripled from a year ago to 17.4 million. App downloads also set a record for the day at 328 million. The app advertising and analytics firm today offered new data showing strong gains in activations and downloads for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. For the week, over 50 million iOS and Android devices were activated, and 1.76 billion apps were downloaded, a 65% increase from the weekly average of 1.07 downloads in December. The U.S. accounted for the bulk of …