There are two important points in the article that are raised, but beg for clarifying details.

• Recent industry actions inadequate?

But Leibowitz hints that he’s growing impatient with marketers’ efforts. “It’s not clear that they’re moving far enough or fast enough, even though they’re making some progress,” Leibowitz says …

The IAB has recently launched an important set of self regulatory principles outlining notice and choice steps required of industry participants. Is Leibowitz stating that the principles, which include out of privacy policy notices and other steps, will not suffice? Or are the principles fine, but the state of adoption poor? Or are other steps entirely absent from the document necessary?

• Opt-in standards for some BT?

[Leibowitz] supports the controversial approach of making more of the targeted ads on the Internet “opt-in”—meaning they would require consent from Web users before collecting data—and is in talks with members of Congress intent on drafting legislation for online ads.

I understand the direction here, but we’re going to have to see specifics on which forms of BT, and which players in the ecosystem will be held accountable for the collection of that consent, before folks in the industry start to breath easy (or know that they should be worried).

Regardless, it’s clear that DC is going to get involved, formally, and that the industry will need to be responsive.

Internet industry executives viewed Leibowitz’s appointment as chairman as a signal that Washington would ratchet up its attention to the impact of technology on consumers. “The stars are aligned for significant change” in online privacy, says Jules Polonetsky, a former executive at AOL (TWX) and Internet advertising company DoubleClick, who now heads the Washington think tank The Future of Privacy Forum.

These are them before the oven bakes ‘em:

So on saturday night, we had a dinner party. We made steak, veggies, fresh ciabatta bread, and the cookies. Sasha had to go to sleep before the cookies were ready, but she had a few (ahem … ok more than a few) nibbles of choco chunks as we were prepping the dough.

On sunday night, she had half a cookie. She loooved them .. and she did 8 laps running up and down the hallway. Ooop … maybe half a cookie was too much. That night I slept in her room due to ongoing Julie coughing issues at night (sorry Julie). And at 3am, Sasha woke me up with tossing about and muttering. And after a few moments of mumbling something indeciperhable, she said, without waking up and with perfect enunciation: ‘choc … o … late’ .. and drifted back peacefully.

That’s the best complement this chef has ever received.

• MSNBC

“Behavioral tracking techniques represent the future in digital advertising, but as companies adapt to take advantage of these technologies, we are seeing some stumble as they struggle to provide transparency around privacy,” said Colin O’Malley, VP of Strategic Business at TRUSTe. “The TRUSTe survey suggests that the more consumers understand these practices, the higher their comfort levels. Knowing this, TRUSTe invites the advertising industry to give its customers a newfound transparency into its tracking and profiling practices so that they may gain consumer trust and earn the right to continue to engage in behavioral advertising activities.”

• MediaPost Online Media Daily

Colin O’Malley, vice president of strategic business at Truste, attributed the increase in the proportion of consumers who said they were comfortable with behavioral targeting to increased publicity over the issue. He said the recent attention to the issue in the mainstream media has helped to increase transparency.

He added that the increased cookie erasures showed that consumers want to be able to manage their experience. “Cookie deletion is just one more indication that consumers are seeking tools to increase their level of control,” he said.

• Biz Report

“One surprise is that over the last 12 months, consumers are actually increasing in comfort about it,” said TRUSTe VP of Strategic Partnerships and Programs Colin O’Malley. “People still remain concerned, but over time, as awareness increases, discomfort decreases.”

• SF Chronicle

Personal highlights:

O’ Malley suggests that familiarity with the concept of behavioral targeting, rather than breeding contempt, is fostering at least a modicum less suspicion, the more BT comes out of the shadows.

But to take the comfort level further, requires not only that marketers take their behavioral initiatives out of the shadows but become radically more proactive in providing true transparency and dialogue, he suggests.

“It’s no longer enough just to have a ‘privacy statement’ up somewhere on your Web site,” he says. ” If they look to increase comfort among a majority of consumers. publishers must consciously build transparency into the essence of the user experience. Web sites that do that, not as a gimmick or an extraneous add-on, will be able to improve not only relevance but consumer engagement and trust as well. But it must be looked at not as an onerous obligation to be conformed with, but as a real opportunity.”

It’s too early to isolate particular solutions as the answer, O’ Malley says, but the good news is, there is some real innovation going on. “I’d point to sites that invite consumers to learn more about exactly why particular ads were targeted to them and why, and why they’re seeing Ad A rather than something else,” he says. “This kind of proactivity communicates very clearly that the publisher has nothing to hide and there are no hidden agendas.”

Two key challenges:

• No early stage revenue
• No real business until you reach a loyal audience of over 1M users

The fist challenge can be overcome with funding or the self-sustaining passion of a few driving founders (provided that your founders have the balance of skill-sets to drive the service for some period of time). The second challenge can be achieved by selecting a niche market initially. Gain traction, build passion, and then decide whether to go deeper into that niche (building a more profitable per user model), or move on to broader, mainstream market (see: Facebook begins as campus tool, goes mainstream and hits 175M users globally). Both options are entirely valid.

How do you earn trust? Over-deliver on value … companies that are obviously holding back the utility of their free services just don’t get traction. Companies that constantly surprise with positive experiences are rewarded in the long term. Being aggressive with ‘business plans’ at the early stages of many consumer markets can be penny wise and pound foolish. This sounds obvious, but one of the most fascinating lessons from the rise of Google is not just that endless cool stuff gets attention … its that it gains trust. And that trust, obtained by over-delivering value without (seemingly, to the user) asking for much in return, translated into a deep reservoir of loyalty that ultimately became wildly profitable. And ask anyone that has competed with Google in the consumer services market—anything Google does is assumed to be better—and also more trustworthy. That’s not just an innovation victory—it’s a trust victory.

Oh, and while you’re busy over-delivering on value over the long term, also grab a third party endorsement. ;0) It always helps.

It can be a struggle to keep on task, and particularly to drive independent work in an environment of distractions (most of which stem from you own computer … hmm). I like the visual reminder.

Last month, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was used by 68.15 percent of the Web surfers monitored. In January 2008, that figure was 75.47 percent; in January 2007, it was 79.98 percent.

The slippage in Windows market share is less dramatic but far more important (bigger business, wide marketplace implications if the trend continues).

The Net Applications stats on operating systems were no more encouraging for Microsoft. In January 2007, 93.33 percent of the Web travelers monitored were running Windows; last month, that figure was down to 88.68. Across the same period, the Mac share rose from 6.22 percent to 9.63.

Listen to the opening experience here: