In a world of rising costs and heightened corporate scrutiny, interactive agencies are increasingly being forced to negotiate with a potential client's procurement officer to land a contract. Like it or not, it has become the new reality -- but agency executives say it doesn't have to be a painful process.

A relationship marked by lows such as Freedom Fries and EuroDisney would seem to have no room to go any lower. And yet: When U.S.-based Google announced plans in December to undertake the cost of digitizing the world's books and making them searchable to the public for free, France called foul, with the country's top librarian complaining loudly of yet another example of "crushing American domination."

Google has stopped allowing downloads of its Web Accelerator software, just days after it began offering the product. Google cited capacity as the reason for putting the brake on downloads of Accelerator, which is designed to speed the delivery of Web pages. A message on the site said the company has reached its "maximum capacity of users and (we) are actively working to increase the number of users we can support."

The Internet and digital technology are changing entertainment at lightning speed. The coming years will scramble concepts of music-making, movies, TV networks and advertising. Last week, USA TODAY's Kevin Maney assembled a panel of some of the industry's most influential players to talk about what's ahead. The discussion took place in San Francisco in front of about 200 members of Silicon Valley's Churchill Club. Maney moderated. Following are excerpts.

I haven't received unsolicited telemarketing calls in months, partly because, I'm on a "Do not call" list. Existing laws are supposed to protect us in a similar way from noxious advertisements and solicitations on our computers. In effect, they essentially say: "Hands off my computer, unless I consent."

Several high-profile businesses got some free advertising on the Los Angeles Times Web site today, but it's not the kind of exposure they're looking for. Times writer Joseph Menn reported that Mercedes-Benz USA and Yahoo, which build the kinds of engines we like in our garages and for our computers, have relied on spyware to get their brands in front of Internet users. And they're not the only ones.

The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet. Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated.

The Ask Jeeves butler wants to kick some serious butt. Emboldened by its pending purchase by Barry Diller's deep-pocketed Web conglomerate Interactive Corp, Web search provider Ask Jeeves Inc. plans to take square aim at industry giants Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. when the deal closes.

In a move that appears to take on TV at its own game, Mark Burnett Productions and Yahoo will produce a live boxing bout that will be exclusively available to online viewers, according to an executive familiar with the deal.

The once-again red-hot online ad marketplace is causing some headaches for media planners. Certainly, no one is complaining in an industry seeing spending growth rates in the 33 percent range over the past few years.