One of the predictions I made last September in my attempt to be way ahead of the year-end predictions was that consumers and Web professionals would continue to not understand online privacy.

On April 29th, the first light against the darkness since Google built a pop-up blocker in its tool bar, shone for all in the industry to see. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) issued guidelines to its membership and the publisher community at large for the governance of pop-up and pop-under ad units.

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! This past week, I spent some time on the east coast with family and friends and I faced the inevitable question from my relatives of "What do you do for a living?" This is always a great question to be faced with, but it can also be a very eye-opening one as well.

I think it's about time that we started proactively educating consumers about how data is used to target advertising.

Many are unaware America Online (AOL) launched a kid's version (KOL) of it's service last September. The features are robust and include customizable welcome screens, a new Batman comic strip, a kid's Internet radio show, and of course - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Within two months, traffic to the site ranged from 700 hits to 2,000 hits daily. According to Forrester Research. KOL is now seeing a 150% increase in traffic.

I enjoyed Cory Treffiletti's Spin on Wednesday. I agree wholeheartedly with his premise. In fact, sales people who call me had better have their ducks in a row. The same applies to PR flaks who call me without checking out my byline history first, or at least my bio. If there is a major interactive trade show upcoming, you can bet that's why the phone is ringing.

You've seen those sexy machines in bars, the neon lighting dressing the edges. They are jukeboxes. Too often clients approach their agencies as though they were jukeboxes. The client comes to the agency with a specific marketing plan in mind and a firm idea of which media he or she wants to use, as well as a pre-selected list of media vehicles. Oh, and they don't want to pay much for you to produce it.

The life of an online media professional is constantly interrupted by cold calls from sales reps looking to build a relationship. These types of calls are necessary and can be very useful as well, as we all know you've got to start somewhere to build a relationship. My advice to sales people? Do your homework!

Folks, blacklists don't work because as soon as a spammer's IP is blocked, he gets a new one and continues to send. Meanwhile, the poor guy who inherits that IP from a spammer quickly finds that he's on a blacklist and can't get legitimate email delivered. Occasionally, you'll see a drastic action such as an entire ISP or even a whole country gets blacklisted and IT folks and legit ISP customers are left holding the bag.

It seems many advertisers are linking to hate sites without even knowing it. The number of these sites is growing almost daily. While no one knows the true number of hate sites, sources indicate that roughly 1,200 to 4,000 exist.