The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a settlement with California-based Voice-Mail Broad­casting Corp. and its owner Jesse Crowe over alleged abuse of the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has obtained a consent judgment against San Francisco-based Telelytics (dba Debt Solutions) which allegedly gave false informa­tion to Missourians during calls made to sell credit card consolida­tion and credit counseling services.

In an effort to apply more metrics to TV spots, The Nielsen Co. monitored US consumer preferences of the Super Bowl XLII ads on its newly launched social network platform HeyNielsen.com. Hundreds of consumers from the volunteer panel rated the ads in real-time.

Online giant Yahoo Inc. is reportedly facing a round of layoffs as part of a restructuring to focus on its core businesses.

The head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators, Peter Scharr, said last week that computer IP addresses should generally be regarded as personal information.

The US Postal Service board of governors has approved enlarging the box used for sending Priority Mail.

Consumer concern over the privacy of online shopping grew in 2007, ac­cording to a 2,021-person study by the University of Southern California's Center for the Digital Future. Sixty-one percent of adult Americans said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal information when buying online, an increase from 47% in 2006.

The Office of the Attorney General of the State of Florida has closed the investigation and will dismiss its lawsuit against World Avenue USA LLC, (formerly NiuTech), dba The Use­ful and Niuniu Ji.

Toronto Strategic Partnership, which consists of law enforcement agencies in the US, Canada and the UK, said it has shut down cross-border teleservices and mailing operations that defrauded nearly two million US and Ca­nadian consumers of more than $380 million over the past seven years. 644 people have been arrested and 495 search warrants have been executed.

NewPage Corp. will shutter parts of paper operations in three states and cut nearly 700 jobs as part of its acquisition of Stora Enso North America. The company, which makes paper used for a wide range of direct marketing activities, including direct mail, inserts, catalogs and coupons, says the moves will increase 2008 North American production between 3% and 8%.