Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna this week promised not to prosecute Backpage.com for running illegal prostitution ads. The move marks an end to litigation about a new Washington law that makes it a felony for Web site operators to allow users to post ads for "commercial sexual acts," when those ads contain images of minors.

The online ad industry's attempts to come up with a new do-not-track tool -- which would allow people to opt out, once and for all, from behavioral targeting -- might be doomed absent new laws. That's according to Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Lorrie Faith Cranor.

Siding with the Federal Communications Commission, a federal appellate court in Washington upheld rules requiring the major wireless carriers to offer their data networks to smaller competitors. The decision means that consumers who access mobile data networks via smartphones and tablets will be able to get online even when in locales not covered by their carriers

Pushing the envelope on privacy, Verizon is trying to patent a new method of delivering interactive ads. In its application for patent, titled "Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a User," Verizon outlines a plan to tailor ads to people based on what they're doing while watching TV.

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia has lost another bid to force YouTube to take down the incendiary "Innocence of Muslims" trailer. Garcia unsuccessfully argued that she owns a copyright interest in her performance, and that YouTube was infringing that copyright by continuing to display the clip over her objection. She sought an injunction forcing the service to remove the clip.