With the US Food and Drug Administration interacting with scores of drug and advertising executives at a two-day meeting on Internet marketing of medical products, Google, Yahoo and other Web companies Thursday urged the federal regulators to facilitate the process of effective pitching of drugs in online advertisements.

Requesting the FDA to outline new regulations for providing companies greater flexibility on the Web, Yahoo Vice President David Zinman said: “We need to get some adjustment to the way the medium is used because it's very different from print and broadcast — that's the main challenge.”

The need for developing new rules for online ads has been suggested by the pharmaceutical companies which complained that they feel somewhat cramped on the Web, with the FDA having tightened up on search advertising in spring this year, and sending out a word of caution about sponsored search.

Since the current FDA rules require all drug ads to mention the benefits as well as the risks of a drug, companies complain that they cannot effectively tout the benefits of their products, due to the fact that several drug ad links appear on search sites, thereby leaving space for only a few words.

Noting that drug-makers circumvent the requirements by running anonymous ads about general medical conditions, Zinman and other online executives argue that such ads prevent the consumers from navigating the Web beneficially.