Morning Reads: FDA Nixes J&J Web Video, Twitter Dissing Ads, Craigslist Sues an AG

FDA calls J&J Web video a no-no. The Food and Drug Administration said a seven-minute video promoting a drug for chronic-pain is misleading because it only displays risk information at the end. The Wall Street Journal reports the agency has asked the company to stop spreading the video and to issue new material that plays up the risk info. The move follows an FDA crackdown on pharma search advertising earlier this spring.

Craigslist preemptively sues South Carolina’s AG. A day after publicly criticizing Attorney General Henry McMaster, who has to threaten it with litigation even after the site’s major concessions on adult-themed ads, Craigslist is taking its grievance to court. In a blog post, the company said McMaster’s posturings are unconstitutional and amount to “prior restraint on free speech.” It plans to seek declaratory relief and a restraining order.

Twitter is not focused on advertising, according to co-founder Biz Stone. Stone said earlier this week that the micro-blogging platform plans to offer tools and services for its business and professional users by end of year, but he suggested serving ads to users doesn’t figure strongly into its plans. “There are a few reasons why we’re not pursuing advertising — one is it’s just not quite as interesting to us,” Stone told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York. Of course, these days the definition of advertising is relative. Many would say Twitter has already accepted its first ads, courtesy of Federated Media. (Reuters)

Here comes Microsoft’s revamped search engine. Microsoft is preparing to demo its new engine at the AllThingsDigital conference next week, the Wall Street Journal says. Some digital execs are skeptical. Tweets 360i’s Bryan Weiner: “IMHO only MASSIVE ad campaign has chance to move needle and that prob wont work.”