A campaign about the Beijing Olympics produced for Amnesty International France was considered so aggressive by its creators that they decided to call off its release. Too late to stop it from getting to Chinese webusers though... Read more.

Despite complaints from the Chinese authorities, Italian car manufacturer Fiat has refused to pull an advert which shows Buddhist actor Richard Gere gleefully playing with traditional Tibetan children. Read more and see the ad.

A Japanese advert that portrays Barack Obama as a monkey has outraged Web users. But is it really racist? Maybe not in Japan... Read more and see the video.

UPDATE (30 June 2008 3pm): Chairman of the telecoms company, Sachio Semmoto, has informed Reuters that E-Mobile has now withdrawn the advertisement, although he denied accusations of racism; saying that the macaque had already been used in several other of their campaigns. He said that he recognised sensitivities with the African-American/ Japanese relationship. He also said that Obama's candidacy is an opportunity for the US and that such a candidate could be beneficial for Japan.

NEW UPDATE (9 July 2008 10.30am): One of our readers has informed us that although the television adverts have been pulled, the campaign is still being circulated in print form. We have verified this with news sources.

TV audiences might never get to see Chevrolet's parody of the Citroen C4 dancing robot, as its bopping bad behaviour won't appear on the box. The viral video is only available online - where taking the piss out of your competitor is above-board and in this case, really rather funny. See the video.

Trend in Google's share price from 2 April 08

Google's stock price has fallen 38% from its peak last year. And, for the first time ever, the number of clicks on the California-based company's cash cow, Google Ads, have stopped climbing in the US. For some financial analysts, alarm bells are ringing. Read more...