San Francisco (CA) - Internet advertising climbed to being just shy of $17 billion last year, and the industry shows no sign of slowing down, according to a jointly released report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Advertising sales and services are by far the #1 source of revenue for online giant Google, and competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo last year introduced strong moves into the virtual ad space.

"Interactive advertising revenues continue to show solid growth as advertisers and agencies recognize that it is a medium that can uniquely affect consumer behavior from product awareness, to purchase intent, to actual purchase and then brand loyalty," said IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg.

Online ads are an increasingly popular new market for many advertisers, as TV spots are losing profitability from the rise of DVR services like TiVo.  Among the most notable Internet ad moves in 2006 included the introduction of sponsored spaces on YouTube and the announcement of Google Adwords to be embedded in software programs like Intuit's QuickBooks.