Florida,United States

In the wake of news that Google is introducing behavioral targeting of advertisements, a Democratic congressman from Virginia is renewing his suggestion that new consumer-protection legislation may be needed to rein in data collection.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said he is working with Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), to craft a bill to require online companies to notify consumers of tracking activity. All three congressmen are members of the Internet subcommittee in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which Boucher chairs.

A Recycled Proposal

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush loved his BlackBerry so much he had it painted into his official state portrait, but a new report shows the state's love affair with wireless devices may have gotten out of hand.

Over lunch last spring, as Robert Bodi listened to a buddy complain about a customer who refused to pay for irrigation work on her property, he knew something sounded familiar about the story. Bodi, an independent irrigation contractor in Venice, Fla., realized the same woman had stiffed him after he fixed some wires in her irrigation system following a lightning strike. "And it turned out, there was a third guy in our business who said she never paid him for putting in a new pump for her," recalls Bodi, a 30-year-veteran of the contracting business, who runs Rainmaster LLC.

Elevate America. That's what Microsoft is trying to do with a new initiative that aims to provide up to two million people over the next three years with the technology training needed to succeed in the 21st-century economy.

Elevate America is Microsoft's way of providing support in response to the economic crisis. It's a public-private partnership that offers a Web site to help individuals understand the types of technical skills required for available jobs and the resources to help acquire these skills, including grants and vouchers.

Elevate America. That's what Microsoft is trying to do with a new initiative that aims to provide up to two million people over the next three years with the technology training needed to succeed in the 21st-century economy.

Elevate America is Microsoft's way of providing support in response to the economic crisis. It's a public-private partnership that offers a Web site to help individuals understand the types of technical skills required for available jobs and the resources to help acquire these skills, including grants and vouchers.

Join us in Washington on March 4th and 5th for a great high-level event meant to help senior communications officers in brands and government implement communications strategies that respond to the recession.
I will be speaking at the RETHINKING CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS 2009 Conference & Bootcamp which has a terrific roster. Check it out today and register at the Communitelliegence site.

I grew up on a dusty, rural road by the lower Colorado River in the Mojave Desert. The occasional ride to the nearest city, Las Vegas, was a two-hour special event. The smog, sprawling stores, slums, and soaring signs of the Strip were the best of urban life that I knew. To this day, visiting the big library at the University of Nevada feels like arriving at the Library of Alexandria and being anointed with knowledge, olive oil, and cool water from a half-functioning drinking fountain.

Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim -- but growing -- chance the ad is watching you too.

Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity -- and can change the ads accordingly.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

Marketers that advertise during the Super Bowl, the championship game of American football, are always seeking more bang for their buck.

This year, with each 30-second commercial during the game estimated to cost a record $3 million -- yes, $100,000 a second -- and the recession threatening to dampen viewer enthusiasm, the sponsors are intensifying efforts to amplify the force of what they plan for Super Bowl XLIII.

"Especially in this economy, people are saying, 'I'd better get my money's worth,'" said Andrew Graff, chief executive of Allen & Gerritsen, a marketing firm.

Google may have slashed its budget for technology tinkering on engineers' pet projects, but that doesn't mean the company isn't seeking new ways to make its search-engine results better.

The company is experimenting with a search feature called Preferred Sites. Users can set Google Web search preferences to get search results that better match their needs and tastes.