A 27-year-old man is facing more than half a century in prison for sending unauthorized advertising emails for years. In the USA, the owner of a marketing company is facing up to 65 years in prison and a fine of up to 25,000 dollars. The young man distributed masses of advertising emails on the Internet for years and must now face justice. According to an SDA report, the US investigators are charging the "king of spam" with fraud, money laundering and assuming a false identity. The judiciary will also attempt to claim damages, as spam is a "plague of the internet" and the 27-year-old is one of its worst sources.
Between fall 2003 and May of this year, the accused allegedly sent millions and millions of unsolicited emails to advertise websites for which his company worked. In order to remain undetected, the man is said to have regularly changed his e-mail addresses and also used Internet providers in China. In the data header of the spam, he allegedly used addressees from other companies to avoid being prosecuted himself.

At the beginning of May, the gallery Madonna#Fust opened in the old town of Bern. According to a media release on Thursday, Madonna#Fust was completely overrun at the opening. The new Bernese gallery entrusts Cosmic Bern with its entire visual appearance. Accordingly, the advertising agency designs everything from the logo to the exterior and interior signage to advertising materials such as flyers, invitation cards and website.

 The 27-year history of the Uster Nachrichten ends with the issue of Thursday, May 31. The reason for the closure of the free newspaper, which has belonged to Tamedia since 2005, is the "unsatisfactory earnings situation", as the paper announced on Wednesday.  
Most recently, the Uster Nachrichten was published with a circulation of 64,000 copies in the municipalities of Uster, Hinwil and Pfäffikon. Insufficient advertising revenue has now prompted the Board of Directors to give up the publication. The economic prospects of the Uster Nachrichten were further worsened by the ongoing shift of classified advertisements to the online business. According to the press release, advertising customers can publish advertisements already booked for the current year at the same conditions in the large circulation of the Tages-Anzeiger regional edition Zürcher Oberland. This is published on Tuesdays with a circulation of 103,390 copies. As a result of the discontinuation of the free newspaper, 3.2 jobs will be cut. Other positions within Tamedia are being sought for those affected. In the event of redundancies, Tamedia promises additional benefits.

 3.2 percent more works entered the Cannes Lions than last year. In figures: A total of 25,660 submissions are vying for the 54th Cannes Lions.  
This is a record: never before have so many entries competed for the coveted Cannes Lions, which will be awarded from June 17 to 23. The Titanium Lions saw the biggest increase in submissions with a plus of 60.4 percent, followed by the Promo Lions, where 26.4 percent more entries were submitted than last year. As reported by the Austrian Standard, 324 creative works were submitted for the Titanium & Integrated Lions (202 in the previous year), while the number of entries for the Promo Lions was 786 compared to 622. The third strongest category in terms of growth was the Radio Lions with 1,273 spots, an increase of 23.4%. In absolute figures, the Press (6,984) and Outdoor (5,758) categories are traditionally in the lead, followed by Film (4,474) and Cyber (2,711).

The Zurich advertising agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett is inviting people to spray paint for the left-wing weekly WOZ - by text message. Since Wednesday, a WOZ poster has been hanging at the bus stop on Zurich's Rosengartenstrasse, inviting passers-by to express their opinion. The slogans can be sent in by SMS and the best one will be sprayed on the wall every day - under the WOZ motto "Have your own opinion." If you would like to see your slogan on the poster, send an SMS with the keyword WOZ and your sprayed slogan to the number 9988. An SMS costs 20 centimes. The current poster and all other posters published up to that date can be viewed from June 1 at .

 Samuel Reber is the new Editorial Director of Blick Online with immediate effect. Reber has been in charge of the editorial team on an interim basis since the departure of his predecessor Martin Baumgartner last February. The 35-year-old Reber joined Blick Online, the most visited media site in the country according to Ringier, in October 2002. The MAZ graduate previously worked as Head of Community Communications at Bluewin, as Project Manager and Channel Manager at Tages-Anzeiger Online and at the Luzerner Zeitung.

 Migros' "Club School Business" was launched on May 1. The associated website was created by the Aargau-based web service provider Three Way.  
Since the beginning of May, the Club School's career offerings have been communicated under the new sub-brand "Club School Business" in order to raise the profile of its vocational education and training offerings. Three Way realized the entire website for German, French and Italian-speaking Switzerland within just two months. The web specialists from Aargau have been working on the Klubschule website since 1999 and have already carried out several redesigns. The "Club School Business" website has now been redesigned not only graphically but also structurally and expanded to include essential functions. As Three Way announced on Wednesday, the Migros Club School website is one of Migros' most successful online stores with around 100,000 online registrations in 2006.

 After the audience response to the previous moderated short news bulletins was unsatisfactory, the private broadcaster 3+ is changing its information offering. From June 1, the daily news will be offered in text form, as running texts and in teletext.  
As Managing Director Dominik Kaiser affirms in a press release, it is important to the broadcaster that its news offering is coordinated with the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) and complies with its license. With the new information offering, the young Swiss television station continues to meet the reporting requirements of its programming mandate with regard to current events in Switzerland and abroad, the 3+ press release continues.

 The British music industry has won a multi-million euro legal dispute against an Asian CD retailer. The Hong Kong-based company CD Wow must pay around 59 million euros in damages to several labels because the Asian company had unlawfully profited from international price fluctuations, according to the verdict. The victory over the CD retailer is one of the biggest successes for the British music industry in the past six years, during which the labels have repeatedly gone to court over copyright infringements. The fine is also one of the highest ever imposed in a legal dispute with the music industry.

 APG's marketing unit eAd, which specializes in electronic advertising, has strengthened and reorganized its sales team with a view to opening up further eBoard locations in the coming months. Chris Mühlemann, who previously worked for more than three years at B,G,Media/Optimedia in the areas of print and outdoor advertising, joined the team at the beginning of April. André Reichenbach, who has been with eAd since 2005, was appointed Head of Sales at e-advertising at the same time.

 The Geneva team from public relations and communications agency Burson-Marsteller has won gold at the Sabre Awards, which were presented for the third time last week in Barcelona, with its "Thinking Big Campaign" project for SAP. Burson-Marsteller Europe won a total of four gold awards.  
Burson-Marsteller is part of the Young & Rubicam agency network and is one of the leading public relations and communications consultancy firms in Switzerland with offices in Zurich, Bern and Geneva, offering services in the areas of corporate communications, financial communications, public affairs, health care and science communications, media relations and specific advertising areas.
 
The Sabre (Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation) Awards recognize outstanding achievements in branding and reputation. They are awarded annually by The Holmes Group, which tracks trends and developments in the public relations industry.

 No moderation, no advertising, just music. And what did blues legend Muddy Waters once say? "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad". Blastfm.ch wants to focus on the former and put an end to the musical uniformity of the Swiss radio landscape with a mix of dub, downbeat, funky breaks, house and a pinch of Latin.  
The initiators from Bern, led by Rolf Blaser alias DJ Blaster, were not content to moan about the yawning boredom on the Swiss airwaves, but preferred to take action themselves. Since radio licenses are a tricky thing in this country, it soon became clear that an Internet radio station was needed. This initially meant a lot of hard work: the gems were sorted out from a pool of 4,000 Vynil records, digitized and saved as mp3 files. Then the tracks were recorded in a database, a stream server was set up, domains, firewalls and web servers were set up, playlists were created, and only then could things get started. However, as the creators write in their press release, the road ahead was rocky, as the copyright authorities IFPI and SUISA tried to stand in the way of musical diversity with high fees. Nevertheless, Blastfm.ch is now available to listen to online, with sets by well-known DJs that can also be downloaded. An album cover gallery for electronic music, unique in Switzerland, completes the offer.