While even online advertising succumbed to the recession last year, things had been looking up down under. The Interactive Advertising Bureau-Australia says that web ad dollars rose 27 percent to $1.7 billion (Australian dollars) during ‘08 ($1.1 billion USD). The report (PDF), prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, doesn’t note that Australia’s online ad business got a fairly late start compared to the U.S. and Europe. Plus, it only judges ad sales across 1,000 sites in Australia. Nevertheless, IAB Australia did notice internet ad revenues slowing in Q4, as spending totaled $462 million, an increase of $83.25 million (or 22 percent) over the previous year and a 2.4 percent rise from Q308. For this year, Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia, is expecting web ad revs to top $2 billion this year for a respectable 17.6 percent gain, if much slower than the 27 percent growth in ‘08.