Google may make bidding for shares in an initial public offering as easy as shopping for a hotel room online. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Web search firm said Thursday that it planned to go public in an unusual "Dutch auction" that would allow investors to place bids for shares over the Web, by phone or by fax.

After years of failed promises for ads that can pinpoint targeted consumers, traditional media are finally taking interactive advertising seriously, on the Web and beyond. Companies that have advertised for years on platforms ranging from television to billboards are rethinking their marketing strategies, as Internet advertisers work through the technology glitches and privacy issues that have challenged the first wave of the technology.

America Online, once rarely mentioned without the term "beleaguered" before its name, started using another word to refer to itself this week -- "turnaround." "Our business is in turnaround mode," Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of AOL, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. But he added: "We feel we still have a lot of work to do."

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to restore a ban on taxing Internet connections for four years, stopping short of the permanent ban approved by the House.

U.S. lawmakers vowed on Thursday to pass legislation to stop deceptive software even though regulators advised against any new laws. Both Republicans and Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said new laws were needed to stop the proliferation of so-called "spyware" that hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities.

Microsoft plans to use more dialog boxes and other messages in future software releases to educate people on 'safe' computing.

E-mail marketing company Digital Impact said this week it would start a search marketing business by the second half of the year.

Two anti-spyware bills are being readied in time for a hearing Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Google Inc. opens its books this week as many still expect, its rivals will be hoping to unravel one of Silicon Valley's most closely guarded secrets: how much it makes every time someone on the planet Googles.

A U.S. music industry group said on Wednesday it sued 477 more people for online copyright infringement as part of its effort to stop music piracy, blamed for a prolonged sales downturn.