A gargantuan iPod Touch billboard disappeared from its scaffolding in Boston this week. The 13,750-square-foot wall of a Planet Self-Storage building is showing its whale mural underneath for the first time since 2007 (that's two years of oversized Apple banners). No one seems to know why the ad so suddenly disappeared, but it might be related to the fact that the state's Outdoor Advertising Board has been calling it illegal for a while. You see, rules for giant wall ads like this require that the building owner sell the product being advertised. Planet Self-Storage sells iTunes gift cards (why?) but not iPods or any other iProducts. (Lots of Apple products might be self–stored inside, of course.) The Boston Globe's take is that the billboard's illegality was generally overlooked by the mayor's office. Maybe PETA elves took the banner down in an effort to save the whales.

—Posted by Sarah Knapp