As the public profile of online behavioral targeting rises, the search for consumer-friendly ways of addressing the technology, privacy and opt-out procedures accelerates as well. Multiple projects seem to be running in parallel. The IAB is working on standardized ad labeling, explanatory language and procedures that content providers and ad networks can deploy. A number of moving pieces are involved in making this system work, we are told, but some elements are being tested with consumers now. I keep hearing that we will see some evidence of this project on sites and in ads sometime early next year.

After fielding numerous emails about Web page tag containers that feed real-time data into dashboards, I went back to TagMan to get the scoop. TagMan cofounder Jonathan Baron tells me Virgin Atlantic is testing the company's container that can hold everything from behavioral targeting tags to analytics. Although unconfirmed by Virgin, Baron says the plan will take the technology live across 25 Virgin Atlantic Web sites worldwide on Nov. 4.

Ask anyone whether he or she wants advertising wrapped around a TV show, slipped atop a Web page or crammed into massive blocks of radio air-time, and the answer is now, and always has been, a resounding, "no." And yet we live in and buy into a mediaverse that remains supported fundamentally by the practices we say we don't like. If such surveys of consumer attitudes towards advertising are to be believed, then Americans immerse themselves in experiences and environments that on some level they resent because of the horrors of advertising. What are we to make of such anomalies? …

Marketers have been searching for ways to improve data collection an management since discovering the Internet holds promise for online advertising and behavioral targeting. Some of those promises are found in casual conversations. So, I keep my ear to the ground. And when I hear a company's chairman talk about an industry in need of a specific technology, an application to solve the need is likely on the way.

"Discovery" has become one of the Web 2.5 buzzwords over the last year, though I have to admit the word enjoys the benefit of fuzziness. Nailing down precisely how, where and when people are to "discover" what they need rather than just search for it is a challenge.

Knowledge opens minds and opportunities. Isn't that what your parents told you as you left for college to study marketing, advertising, sales or technology? So, why does it surprise you to learn consumers are less than ecstatic about behavioral targeting? After all, technology companies and advocacy groups have spent little to no time educating industry execs or the general public.

Publishers need to understand the power of data -- how to access it and what it reveals. A better understanding of your audience can maximize content and advertising results.

I have mixed thoughts about being targeted ads on my mobile phone. While I'm the first to admit my love for technology, and that my AT&T BlackBerry goes wherever I do, I'm a little sensitive to ad targeting, especially when Neiman Marcus serves up an ad to me somewhere across the Web after I've abandoned the shopping cart on their site. (As far as I can tell, they seem to be the only retail store following me.) So, how would you feel if an ad for a store you frequented online was served up on your mobile phone browser?

The notion of a "digital valet" has been in the air for a long time. In recent years I have heard marketers , semantic Internet researchers, and futurists all predict a "brain-like Web" that can create "concierge" services. In this model, our online browsing and shopping behaviors are layered on top of our social graph, connected to our contacts and calendars. In essence, the full integration of the pieces of our digital lives allow the "brain" to anticipate our next needs. I have heard marketers paint a future landscape in which a service recommends your family's next vacation because it …

If you're confused about the ad networks or technology companies offering behavioral targeting, Tatto Media CEO Lin Miao says you're not alone. Consolidation is on the horizon, he says, and "smoke and mirror behavioral shops" will fall by the wayside within the next 12 to 18 months.