Google's proposed $90 million click fraud settlement is under review, but some are now calling for a neutral third-party auditor to sniff out just how much damage has been done in a pay-per-click industry many believe to be rampant with fraud. Meanwhile, Google's proposed settlement does nothing more than cover that which has already happened; click fraud is not going to go away and there could be more legal action if it's proven that Google and Yahoo are inadequately addressing the problem. Click fraud auditing companies, like ClickFacts, do exist, but the Googles and the Yahoos of the world won't …

As we've all heard, because by now every media outlet on the planet has reported on it, by the end of the month, Disney will put its popular TV shows on the Web for free via ad-supported streaming video. As Marketwatch columnist Bambi Francisco notes, advertising on the Internet is different from mass advertising on TV: it's based on information the advertiser has collected about us, as opposed to the more generalized attempts of TV advertisers to get us to remember a brand and a simple message. The fact that Disney is willing to move forward with an ad-supported model …

Unless you're in the cold like Ted Williams, you know about MySpace, but did you know about the MySpace economy? As tens of millions show up regularly at News Corp.'s virtual hangout, ambitious entrepreneurs have figured out how to make some money off the site's considerable clout among younger consumers. Forbes points out that MySpace, like other mega-sites Google, eBay and Craigslist, is becoming its own economic ecosystem. Some youngsters are propping up Web sites that offer MySpace users free tools to upgrade and spruce up their profiles with colors and images, others will do whole personal page redesigns for …

Adware companies, always a hit with consumers, are back in the news for the wrong reasons these days--unless you're Claria and you've left the business for good, which means you've probably gotten what you might consider "good press." Firms like 180solutions are being revisited in the news for "deceptive practices" and the like, following Federal Trade Commission filings from consumer advocacy groups and new anti-spyware research. (Yes, adware and spyware are still interchangeable terms for some spyware crusaders, who are using both words to refer to software-based marketing.) In fact, the Center for Democracy and Technology recently turned the tables …

Journalists at major publications like The New York Times are writing their stories with Google's crawlers in mind, search blogger John Battelle points out. Times Co. reporter Steve Lohr "outed" himself and others by saying newspapers are now thinking about how Google might parse the paper's headlines, which has effectively changed the once-subtle art of headline writing. You'll notice the pointedness of many a headline in the news these days?yep, folks, that's what you get in a post-Google world, Google-optimized headlines like "Zuma Testimony Sparks HIV Fear," "Obituary: Gene Pitney," etc. Battelle seems to think this is okay, and so …

YouTube is definitely the Internet's flavor of the month, but some critics wonder if the video sharing site is walking the same thin line Napster, the first peer-to-peer file sharing service, once walked and fell off. Just as Napster made it easy for users to download free music, YouTube makes it easy to download free video, and often, that video belongs to copyright holders. So far, YouTube doesn't police the site for copyrighted content, but it has adhered to requests from media companies to remove clips belonging to them. The company also hasn't been sued yet; in fact, many Hollywood …

New media companies like Google seem to be more excited about the prospects for traditional media than the old media firms themselves, says David Kirkpatrick of Fortune. While newspaper execs worry Craigslist and co. could spell doom for their industry, TV people are frightened by the blistering pace of broadband TV's evolution. In fact, executives at these old media firms seem altogether more enthused about the potential impact of the Internet on their business rather than the future of their core businesses themselves, Kirkpatrick says. People won't just stop reading newspapers or magazines or channel surfing. In the end, …

Representatives from the advertising community met this weekend with executives from the largest actors' unions to sort out compensation for acting in ads delivered digitally to computers, cell phones, PDAs, DVRs and MP3 players. The ad industry's Joint Policy Committee on Broadcast Talent Union Relations met reps from the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to negotiate a new payment structure that considers all media. Used to be that actors were paid a percentage of the media costs, but as audiences are fragmenting and TV ads are being repurposed online, things are getting a …

Last week we found out that Google and EarthLink, with the help of Motorola and Tropos Networks, had been given the sizable task of outfitting San Francisco with city-wide Wi-Fi. This week, the initiative finds itself at the center of a debate about the role of advertising in the new network, and the effect the project will have on regional telco providers that sell access in the city today. Users of San Francisco's new network get two choices: a free, ad-supported option from Google at six times the speed of dial-up, or a $20 per month subscription from Earthlink, running …

In a surprising move designed to bring in new advertising revenues, The Walt Disney Co. has said it plans to make TV shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" available for free over the Internet. Episodes streamed over the Web can be paused, fast-forwarded, or rewound, and will contain commercial breaks viewers won't be able to skip. Disney's move marks the first time a major TV network owner has made original programming available on the Internet for free. Episodes of the shows being offered will become available the morning after they air on TV. Ten advertisers, including Ford Motor Co. Procter …