Lawsuits filed by some of the Web's biggest players against junk e-mailers have portrayed an industry united in the war against spam--but there are few signs of collaboration in developing technology standards that could be more effective in slowing the deluge.

Should the ad agency be reinvented? These days, that question may seem pretty pointless. We've changed to deal with the Internet's challenges. Take a hard look at your agency (or your internal marketing department) and examine how things get done. You may realize things aren't as different as you thought. That's bad.

Washingtonpost.com has required user registration since last month, joining a growing number of online publishers that have started asking their readers for personal information like location, age, gender and occupation. The reason: Sites generally can charge advertisers more for the ability to reach a targeted audience. But people derail that goal by intentionally falsifying their user information. They fear that Web sites will sell their details to junk e-mailers, and resent the time it takes to enter the information.

Anti-spam legislation, the CAN-SPAM Act, hasn't made a dent in the volumes of unsolicited messages, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In fact, nearly one-quarter of the respondents reported a greater influx of spam in their personal e-mail accounts since Jan. 1, 2004, when the legislation went into effect.

If Mohammed won't come to the metaverse, perhaps the metaverse will come to Mohammed. That's the theory behind RSS, or "really simple syndication," which collects headlines and stories from various Web sites and delivers them to your computer in the form of e-mail, or as your own personal newspaper.

Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. has held talks in recent months with software maker Microsoft Corp., about selling its America Online unit, the New York Post reported on Friday.

Internet service provider American Online has the right to buy about 1.9 million preferred shares of Google Inc. for around $22 million, under a 2002 deal with the world's No. 1 Web search engine, AOL parent Time Warner Inc. said in a recent filing.

An estimated 74.9 percent of Americans, or 204.3 million out of 272.8 million measured by the 2000 Census, have access to the Internet from home, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, New York.

Time Warner Inc. may be gearing up to decide the fate of its struggling America Online division -- but it might take a while.

A new invitation-only social networking site hopes to profit by letting marketers reach its young, professional members. SmallPlanet.net, billed by its CEO as a sort of online AARP for the 18-to-35 set, snapped up more than 1,500 members and seven marketing partners since its soft launch Mar. 10.