Sometimes, due to boastfulness or inattention or just plain guilelessness, the truth just slips out. Such as when Chad Gallagher, director of mobile at AOL Platforms, informed InformationWeek about the allure of native advertising, freely acknowledging the ethical -- and we hope soon illegal -- tactic of camouflaging advertising to look like editorial. Not sure what brought out this rare burst of candor from a publishing executive. For once, however, someone called a thing by its name.

It is spring, when a man's fancies turn to media and marketing. Tra la. So much to be fascinated about. So let's start by talking about heroin dealers and Facebook. Same thing. They both give you a free taste till you're hooked.

When people talk about the dystopian aspects of the Internet, they get it all wrong. Identity theft? Big deal. Cyberbullying? Pfft. Hate speech, snooping, piracy, porn? Bring it on. What we need to eradicate is the emailed press release.