AOL, the massive American Internet Service Provider has paid $435m for Advertising.com. The move comes amid a sudden boom in Internet based advertising.

The business model of Advertising.com is to buy space on other websites and then resell it to advertisers.

Last year Advertising.com made an operating profit of $12.1 on revenues of $132m.

AOL desperately needs to move away from generating revenue from dial-up subscribers. Indeed in the first quarter of the year, AOLs advertising spend amounted to $214m.