Moves at Microsoft have put the Live Search and adCenter teams together in a newly formed Search and Ad Platform group. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella will run the group, taking over from former head of search Chris Payne, who is leaving the company. The struggling search side of Microsoft only holds about eleven percent of US search market share according to comScore Networks.

Terry Semel couldn’t be happier with the performance of Yahoo’s new search advertising system. The Yahoo CEO told an AdAge conference that Panama would show “some very exciting numbers” in the first quarter as they try to gain on Google. “We have said from the beginning and we say it clearly right now, again, that our intention is to close the gap and Panama is doing a great job,” Semel said.

Yahoo has disclosed for the first time it discards anywhere from 12 to 15 percent of clicks on its ads as either invalid or of inferior quality. To help fight click fraud, Yahoo promoted one of their attorneys, Reggie Davis, to a newly created post of vice president of marketplace quality. “We need to take some of the inconsistency out of this issue,” Davis told Reuters about the challenge of fighting click fraud.

The source of the anti-Hillary Clinton video spoofing Apple’s legendary ‘1984′ advertisement has been identified. The Huffington Post identified Philip de Vellis, who has resigned his position with Internet company Blue State Digital in the wake of the controversy surrounding the ad. “I made the “Vote Different” ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process,” De Vellis said on his blog.

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