Internet ad revenue rose to $49.5 billion in 2014, breaking the previous revenue record set in 2013 of $42.8 billion, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said Wednesday in a report. Internet ad revenue in 2014 rose 16 percent over revenue in 2013 -- the fifth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth, IAB said in the report. Internet ad revenue increased 17 percent year over year in Q4 to $14.2 billion, IAB said in the report, which was prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Search revenue was $19 billion of the $49.5 billion, while mobile advertising totaled $12.5 billion, IAB said. Social media advertising totaled $7 billion, while digital video advertising was $3.3 billion, IAB said. “Marketers clearly recognize that consumers are leading mobile-first lives and are investing their ad dollars accordingly,” IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg said in a news release. “The news of digital video’s double-digit growth is also no surprise. Brands and agencies are clamoring to get into the upcoming Digital Content NewFronts, where they will experience the latest in storytelling in sight, sound and motion.”

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued an alert warning law enforcement personnel and public officials of increased risk of cyberattacks. “Doxing -- the act of gathering and publishing individuals’ personal information without permission -- has been observed,” IC3 said in Tuesday's alert. “Hacking collectives may exploit publicly available information identifying officers or officials, their employers, and their families,” IC3 said. “These target groups should protect their online presence and exposure.”

Broadcom is seeing a lot of activity in the IoT market, CEO Scott McGregor said on a Tuesday call about Q1 results. That quarter, it shipped a large number of development kits for “prototyping” IoT products, he said. Broadcom continues to “garner new design wins in a broad set of verticals” for IoT, “ranging across automotive, medical devices, healthcare, life goods and home automation,” McGregor said. Q1 revenue in Broadcom’s connectivity business rose 13 percent on strong consumer adoption of new high-end smartphones and growing penetration of new technologies such as 802.11ac, McGregor said. Broadcom is seeing “significant customer interest” in its latest 5G Wi-Fi BCM4359 chip that offers “industry-first” real simultaneous dual band (RSDB) support, he said. “This technology is expected to ship later this year and allows a smartphone or tablet to transfer data across two bands at the same time, enabling new applications and increasing the performance of existing applications.” Broadcom unveiled the BCM4359 in an early-March announcement, saying that by enabling RSDB support, the BCM4359 is able to connect to the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands simultaneously, “improving the throughput and latency when using multiple applications at the same time, particularly video streaming and gaming.”

Most Americans believe more transparency and data sharing by the government will help journalists and hold officials more accountable, a survey from the Pew Research Center found. Very few individuals think government agencies are doing a great job of providing useful data, the survey, released Tuesday, said.

Twitter said it’s changing its direct message functionality “so that it’s even easier for you to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people, anywhere in the world.” Twitter users are now able to opt to receive direct messages from all Twitter users instead of just people who follow a particular account, Senior Software Engineer Nhu Vuong said in a Monday blog post. Twitter is also updating its messaging rules to allow users to reply to anyone who sends the user a direct message, and is adding a direct message button on Twitter profile pages accessed via Android and iPhone, Vuong said.

Netflix subscribers “in regions around the world experienced problems for several hours Sunday connecting and streaming on a number of Samsung devices,” a Netflix spokesman said. The issue was resolved around 7 p.m. PDT, he told us, saying Netflix is “working with Samsung to investigate the issue.” Subscribers who visited the website Sunday evening saw a message that read that Netflix was “currently experiencing issues streaming on some Samsung devices” and was working on the problem. Samsung didn’t immediately comment Monday.

The FTC has taken action and obtained settlements in more than 50 cases against businesses charged with failing to provide reasonable protections for consumer data, or misrepresenting the protections they provide, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said Wednesday in testimony on IRS impersonation scams and identity theft before the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Brill talked about how the agency “collects, manages, and analyzes identity theft complaints in order to target its education efforts and assist criminal law enforcement authorities.” The FTC also “reaches out to businesses by distributing ... guides for data security and developing data security guidance for specific industries,” Brill said. The commission will “soon provide more guidance for businesses as part of its Start with Security initiative,” Brill said, which includes road shows, webinars and updating business guidance on data security. The “FTC develops data security guidance for specific industries,” Brill said, such as specific guidance for mobile app developers. Business guidance materials are also available on specific topics such as peer-to-peer file sharing programs and companies’ obligations to protect consumer and employee information, Brill said. The FTC “recently released guidance about ways to provide data security for Internet of Things devices, which includes tips such as designing products with authentication in mind and protecting the interfaces between devices connected to the Internet,” Brill said. In response to the President’s Executive Order last year on "Improving the Security of Consumer Financial Transactions," the “FTC is developing and implementing a plan to make the recovery process for identity theft victims quicker and less burdensome,” Brill said. The agency will unveil a new IdentityTheft.gov in the coming weeks, she said.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager should “file formal charges against Google in the European Commission’s ongoing antitrust investigation of the Internet giant,” a Consumer Watchdog news release said Tuesday. Formal charges are necessary to ensure consumer welfare, the news release said, saying “three unacceptable proposals” from former Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia “did not resolve the fundamental issue of search manipulation.” In a letter to Vestager, Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson wrote that “without a formal Statement of Objections to motivate Google, the company simply engages in lengthy settlement talks and continues its abusive anticompetitive behavior. If nothing else, a Statement of Objections will concentrate Google executives’ minds and prompt serious negotiations,” he said. “If the Internet giant fails to give an adequate response, the path is open to force changes and levy substantial fines,” Simpson said. Consumer welfare “must be the ultimate test of any antitrust settlement,” Consumer Watchdog said, saying the “only way to deal with this conflict is to remove it.” Simpson said Google’s different services and assets need to be separated, and at a minimum “any remedy must insist that Google use an objective, nondiscriminatory mechanism to rank and display all search results -- including links to Google products.” Google didn't comment.

Akamai Technologies has become a strategic investor in Rubicon Labs, the cybersecurity firm said Wednesday. Rubicon said it has now closed its Series A financing round after garnering a combined $11 million from Akamai and earlier investors Pelion Ventures and Third Point Ventures. “Akamai invested in Rubicon because it has the unique capability to make encryption keys invisible so that authorized users and potential hackers alike have no knowledge of what they are,” Akamai Chief Architect Stephen Ludin said in a news release. “Rubicon has developed a true zero knowledge system whose protocols are cryptographically sound for use in data centers but also light enough to scale down to emerging IoT applications.” Akamai's investment “represents an opportunity for Rubicon to work closely with the industry’s leader in cloud security to explore and develop next-generation secure communications technology,” Rubicon CEO Dave Lundgren said in a news release.

HBO Now is available to Apple and Optimum Online subscribers, giving audiences instant access to HBO’s programming, Time Warner Inc. said in a Tuesday news release. HBO Now is available directly through Apple or Cablevision's Optimum Online broadband service for a monthly subscription of $14.99. Customers who sign up this month for HBO Now will get a 30-day introductory free trial period. Similar to HBO Go, HBO Now will offer more than 2,000 titles online, including current series such as Game of Thrones, True Detective, Silicon Valley, Girls, The Wire and Deadwood. HBO Now subscribers will also have access to Hollywood movies such as Divergent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Neighbors and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.