For any among you who've been under a rock for the past week, New York Attorney General (AG) Eliot Spitzer sued Intermix, an Internet marketing company on April 28.

About half of Google's staff works on identifying and delivering relevant results based on keyword search strings entered by users. The actual Google search algorithm is a well kept "trade secret." However, many find consensus in the notion that in the "post Florida update" era, Google still ranks pages by counting the number links back to them. As one might imagine, there is a "secret sauce" component, and maybe even a human being somewhere in the process -- but they won't say for sure. What is clear, is that Google's unique selling principle is the delivery of highly relevant search …

This week I was forwarded an article that ran in The Economist. The article dealt with the consumer and their position of power in the role of media development, but there was one element of the article I found to be very interesting as it sparked an idea in my head and seemed to mesh with a concept I had already been thinking about, but was having difficulty in expressing.

Not to belabor the issue, but my column from two weeks ago centered around a report from Atlas that claimed the sky wasn't falling on cookies, and that report has subsequently been corrected.

Did anyone ever tell you the best things in life are free? In an offline world, that might be true. Well dear readers, it happened to me. One day recently I was sitting in my office looking out my window admiring many of life's freebies - the green grass, a bird chirping, a little kid riding his bike. All of a sudden I looked at my laptop and it was creepingly slow. I thought maybe I had too many open windows. Nope. Maybe I got an e-mail that was too large to download? Nope. It was spyware.

In last week's column, I mentioned Dave Chappelle's comic skit on how the Internet is like a shopping mall. Anyone who's viewed Chappelle's raucous bit can understand why his perspective is so similar to that of many casual Web users - not to mention more apprised industry observers. Many of the people we try to reach online simply don't like our industry or its tactics.

Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of Real Networks, took out more than a few full page ads to tout his new semi-free, music rental service, Rhapsody25 -- a revamped version of Real's Rhapsody online music service that allows users to download and listen to 25 songs a month free of charge. They also announced Rhapsody To Go, a service that adds portability to the download service.

If you read my column regularly, you'll note that one of my favorite topics of discussion is clutter. Our world is becoming increasingly cluttered and it's only going to get worse. The more the consumer becomes immunized and unresponsive to established forms of advertising, the more we find innovative, ingenious ways to speak to them and convey the messages of our brands. Hopefully these messages are targeted to the consumers we want to speak to and we avoid disturbing those consumers who show no interest.

The hubbub over standard terms and conditions seems like ancient history. For some time now, we've had a common ground on which agencies and sellers can both stand, known as the IAB/AAAA Terms and Conditions Version 2.0.

You'd have to be living under a rock if you haven't heard all the hoopla about behavioral targeting. Let's face it, knowing what your prospects do, search for, buy, etc. online is the Holy Grail for advertisers (especially this one).