Gator just can’t seem to stay out of court. A group of irate Web publishers, including The Washington Post, the New York Times, Dow Jones and Tribune, filed suit in federal court earlier this week against Gator, charging that the firm sells ads - mainly pop-ups - on their proprietary sites without authorization and pockets the proceeds.

When did DoubleClick turn into a research company? Their latest release actually provides good data and insight into the online advertising industry. The Marketing Spending Index they released yesterday shows that marketers are “cautiously optimistic about the growth of their media budgets for the remainder of 2002.”

Good new for all. Advertising spending is expected to rise 2.5% for 2002 to 109.1 billion, according to the mid-year estimate first released yesterday by CMR.

To start off with a cliché, there’s never a dull day in Internet advertising. Just yesterday, the industry gathered around the water coolers (read: IM screens) to talk about rising consumer confidence, the new IAB ad campaign, and the new version of the Atlas DMT ad server. Today, to balance things out a little, I thought I’d talk about something a bit more fun. The Pets.com Sock Puppet.

Not only did Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open, he drove more than half a million people to the web.

The second day of @d:tech has come and gone, and aside from some informative presentations and interesting case studies, the most valuable piece of news that came out of yesterday is the new study by Stanford University and Makovsky & Company, which offers some insight to what makes websites credible.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised with the first day of the season’s biggest online industry get-together. Compared to last year’s @d:Tech Los Angeles, everyone agrees that 2002 is much better from every angle.

@d:Tech Los Angeles is scheduled to kick off with a keynote from Orbitz’ Michael Sands in a few short hours and while I don’t dare predict the quality of the show to come, I will say that the day is beginning on a good note.

Instant Messaging has not yet materialized into the super online ad vehicle some thought it would soon become, but consumers are sure addicted to it. Nielsen//NetRatings yesterday revealed that more than 41 million, or nearly 40% of the active Internet surfing population at home, used at least one of the four major IM applications during the month of May.

How long does it take to find out if your online ad campaign is successful? If you’re in the travel industry, don’t bother fastening your seatbelts because it will be a while.