The growth of the firm is attributed to its comprehensive online display ad management suite. This platform enables agencies and advertisers to, among other things, post display ads in real time, optimize across media and centralize all reporting.

Miguel Fernandez-Gil, Adform’s business development director in Spain, considers it a likely possibility that the company will be able to mirror the Italian growth success in the Spanish market. ”While the rest of the media market has prorogued, online display advertising here has increased by 14,” he says. “The rich media market, including video formats, in particular is gaining ground and now represents more than €70 million. There are not enough tools to handle demand in Spain.”

“Many of our competitors only offer a piecemeal solution that either handles media purchases or optimization, while we are able to deliver a comprehensive platform that covers the complete everyday media management in an agency, encompassing media planning, buying, optimization and reporting. We have been surprised by the high growth potential in Italy during this time of crisis and certainly recognize the possibility that the market may turn out to be even more attractive for us in Spain,” says Martin Stockfleth Larsen, marketing director of Adform.

Appealing sells itself as the largest mobile video network in Europe and boasts clients such as ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann. The company’s “Interactive Video Player” ad format took the Grand Prix prize at MobiTech Europe in 2010. Appealing founder and CEO Owen Hanks will bring his senior management team to YuMe Europe.

“As smartphone and tablet adoption takes off, the mobile video market will grow considerably both in complexity and reach,” said YuMe CEO Michael Mathieu. “And the advertising on these platforms needs to be relevant and smart, especially for premium brands.”

In March, YuMe introduced version 3 of its ACE for Publishers video management platform.

The Financial Times reported that the recommendation from the Article 29 Working Party (sounds socialist…) is the first step in drafting legislation on mobile location data and could be added to the EU’s e-Privacy Directive, which is supposed to make cookies crumble across Europe come May 25 even if no country within the union is prepared to implement the law.

In addition to stringent rules on how location data is collected and stored, the panel recommended that any and every location-based service — whether offered by the OS, telecom or app-maker — be required to first ask permission from the user to employ such location data. This would also require a long explanation about what exactly the data will and could be used for.

“Since smartphones and tablet computers are inextricably linked to their owner, the movement patterns of the devices provide a very intimate insight into the private life of the owners,” the panel wrote. “One of the great risks is that the owners are unaware they transmit their location, and to whom.”

Industry players are making the age-old argument that this is a hassle and will hinder development, but the opt-in element sounds pretty reasonable, and somewhat akin to what Google currently provides on its Android OS. Basically location-based services would provide users with a long and winding agreement about location data-sharing before letting them use the service. And like user agreements for most software, the majority of consumers would (sorta) skim it and hit “agree.”

By the way, I think iTunes has claimed rights on my firstborn — suckers. You go deal with the little brat, Steve Jobs.

MMN boasts a reach of 144 million uniques across the entire European continent and has 300 premium partner sites on its roll. Criteo currently has more than 1,000 retailer clients.

“Microsoft Advertising’s combination of scale and quality publisher sites across Europe is an ideal partner for our advertisers, and we are excited to do more together,” said Jonathan Wolf, Criteo’s chief business development officer. “Microsoft has long been an innovator in online advertising, and has been a core partner for Criteo as we have grown over the last few years in Europe.”

While Criteo shifted its headquarters to Palo Alto, CA, last year, the company built its retargeting reputation across Europe first.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the European Commission also is looking into charges that Google prevented pubs signed up with AdSense from accepting ads from search competitors, and whether it restricted outside use of campaign data from its ad platform.

In the Commission’s own words:

“The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so-called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services. The Commission will also look into allegations that Google lowered the ‘Quality Score’ for sponsored links of competing vertical search services. The Quality Score is one of the factors that determine the price paid to Google by advertisers.

“The Commission’s probe will additionally focus on allegations that Google imposes exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their web sites, as well as on computer and software vendors, with the aim of shutting out competing search tools. Finally, it will investigate suspected restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms.”

Price-comparison sites Ciao (powered by Microsoft’s Bing) and UK-based Foundem along with French legal search engine Ejustice.fr filed an antitrust complaint against Google in February. Google has repeatedly denied the allegations, though interestingly an anonymous source told TechCrunch that Google has an obligation to shut out “spammy links from lame ‘shopping’ search engines.”

However, Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand makes the seemingly obvious point that people don’t go to search engines to go to other search engines. “Over time, it has made more sense for search engines like Google — or Bing for that matter — to provide a better search experience by creating vertical search engines and blending them into regular search results,” he writes. “It’s their job. If they are not allowed to do this, they cannot serve their users well.”

So such monopoly allegations may be bold, but difficult to prove. There seems to be a whiff of smaller players using a convoluted legal system to harangue the dominant company in the space.

While it may be a pain in Google’s neck to deal with the investigation, getting publicly cleared of such accusations may be a boon to its business in general — pretty much an EU stamp of approval. As David Wood, legal counsel for European trade organization Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (ICOMP), puts it, “A thorough investigation is necessary to determine the workings of Google’s black box.”

Of course, if Google is guilty of these practices… that’s quite a credibility hit. Google’s dominant position is supposed to be due to its superior technology, not because it kicks down the little guys.

In his previous position as director of strategic partnerships for Europe for Google, the responsibility for some of the company’s biggest commercial relationships in the region fell on Jonas’ shoulders. Prior to that, he worked at Yahoo! Europe following the acquisition of Overture Europe in 2003. In addition, he assisted idealab! portfolio companies venturing into Europe as a founding member of idealab! Europe.

“I was attracted to InMobi by the phenomenal talent and success of the existing team, combined with their desire to build a truly global business in the fastest growing digital sector of this new decade,” Jonas said. “So many factors are finally converging in Europe, which will result in significant growth in the use of mobile technology, with advertising being both a driver and beneficiary of this growth.”

Indeed –  since InMobi’s European launch five months ago, the company is witnessing around 900 ad requests per month from the region. In particular, the United Kingdom has entered InMobi’s top five network traffickers.

Europe will be able to turn on, tune in and… well, plug away with the increased efficiency and transparency RTB provides. Initial RTB partners for the U.K. venture are AdJug, AppNexus, Infectious Digital, Invite Media and MediaMath.

“Real-time bidding is the latest in a series of innovations that are changing the way digital ad inventory is transacted,” said Michael Barrett, CEO of AdMeld. “We are pleased to lead its introduction into the UK and surrounding region by offering premium publishers the tools they need to generate the most overall revenue while accommodating their unique needs and enforcing their business rules.

Since launching support for RTB technology, AdMeld has processed more than 6 billion bids from a variety of demand partners.

Geoscape is the latest to venture back across the Atlantic — in partnership with Geoscape Europe BV, the company has launched a Europe-centric version of its intelligence system, an online platform that offers detailed geo-demographic, retail and consumer data for more than 40 countries.

In addition, the platform measures market potential at the country level all the way down to neighborhoods. And if you like colorful maps, GIS Europe stocks ones that label roads and terrain, as well as offering satellite views.

MySpace will be cutting 300 international staff and closing at least 4 offices outside the US, with those in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain coming under review, according to Techcrunch. MySpace head Owen Van Natta said the company grew its European operations too fast and that London, Berlin, and Sydney offices will become hubs for the company’s regional activities.

Despite earlier reports, Fox Interactive Media will be not be closed down, just restructured, but will probably have it’s name changed to the Digital Media Group, according to AllthingsD.

MySpace already laid off 30 percent of its staff, about 420 people, in the U.S., though there are no current plans for more layoffs.

This past week’s layoffs looks like it could be the first round. MySpace already laid off 30 percent of its staff, about 420 people. But another round, between 300-500, could be axed, according to Alley Insider, and the struggling social network’s nominal overlord Fox Interactive Media could be no more.

Now Techcrunch is saying that “next up for termination were over 100 of its international employees, as it has almost 30 offices around the world. MySpace in Europe covers 19 territories via 6 offices.”

This is bolstered by what Kara Swisher heard that unless advertising plunges even more, there won’t be more U.S. cuts. But MySpace internationally is not doing well, so it’s a whole different ball game, she was told.