This week, ClickZ editors will be speaking at three events in New York and Boston. At 212, New York's Interactive Advertising Club, I'm moderating a discussion tonight that examines trends in online retail marketing with a dynamic group of pros. They are: Matt Bailey of Hanover Direct; Eric Nadler of Danskin.com; Jim O'Brien of Barnes & Noble, and JupiterResearch's Patti Freeman Evans. Tomorrow, on day two of the Personal Democracy Forum in New York,

Following recent instances of ad misplacement involving major U.K. brands, the IAB U.K. has announced it will meet with ad exchanges in order to bring them in line with its IASH )Internet Ad Sales House( accreditation system. IASH is the IAB U.K.'s official ad network council, which seeks to "encourage best practice among online advertising sales houses through the adoption of an effective code of conduct." Although only ad networks qualify for full IASH accreditation, IAB U.

It's been fully 10 months since the last reorg from Yahoo, a company that shakes up its executive ranks almost as often as chronic reshuffler Microsoft. Even setting aside its habitual restructuring, that's an eternity in Yahoo-time. Way back in August 2007 - when it named Hilary Schneider to lead the new Global Partner Solutions unit - the company was still basking in praise for Panama, new CEO Jerry Yang had yet to complete his 100-day evaluation,

Aegis Group has added a new international outpost to Isobar's iProspect search marketing unit. The purchase of Globlet in Thailand brings the division regional expertise in retail, technology, healthcare and real estate marketing for search environments. The agency will be rebranded iProspect Thailand. Isobar already has a Thai outpost, online media planning and site development firm Digithais, which it acquired in 2005.

With approval ratings for the current administration at all time record lows, Credo Mobile came up with this near-irresistible e-mail subject line. The body copy and call-to-action are no less compelling: Sorry to say, but the political action committee at AT&T contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the Bush/Cheney campaign â€" twice. So, go ahead, check out your mobile phone company. And then check out the mobile phone alternative you can trust.

Yahoo's come to resemble an anthill that's been bombed with firecrackers . The latest to walk, according to reports : Communities and Front Doors SVP Brad Garlinghouse )left, of peanut butter manifesto fame (, plus Qi Lu, EVP of engineering for the search and advertising technology group, and search search group SVP Vish Makhijani, who's reportedly headed to Russian search firm Yandex. Additionally, Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield are leaving the company.

Alibaba, known for its eBay-like online auction site in China, is apparently getting some traction for its free online auction service called Alimama.com, Reuters U.K. reports . The Alimama service was launched last year . Since then, it's reached a milestone. According to reports, it has currently 400,000 registered Web sites and 2.8 billion daily page views in the 10-month trial run, according to the Reuters article.

Batman's been made over so many times, in comics, TV and film, that the character is now defined by reinvention. So it's fitting that a MySpace homepage takeover ad for the latest flick in the franchise is the first to accompany the site's big redesign . Fitting, but not extraordinary. You'd expect MySpace to pull out the stops for its first major ad execution under the new design regime.

As rumors of a Yahoo hiring freeze soar , the company's SVP North American Sales David Karnstedt told the crowd at today's William Blair and Company's annual growth stock conference Yahoo "continue[s] to hire aggressively." At least, that's the case for the sales department, as indicated by Karnstedt during a Q&A at the Chicago get together. The notion of hiring aggressively doesn't exactly jibe with the gossip that Yahoo is in the midst of a hiring freeze,

I had a great chat with Mark Davis, VP Strategy at San Diego Union Tribune this afternoon. Following some significant interactive exec departures , Davis is heading up strategy for the publisher's interactive operations )in addition to strategy for the overall business(. He's got a lot of decision making ahead of him, but one of those decisions may involve Yahoo's newspaper consortium. "We're also looking at the Yahoo consortium," Davis told me,

Brightcove has launched the latest version of its video player, which could result in more ad inventory for publishers using it. Essentially, by better optimizing video content for search engines, and enabling better distribution of video clips throughout publisher sites, the company expects more users to flock to that video. More usage = more ad inventory. The new platform presents each video on its own Web page, giving it a dedicated URL.

MySpace claimed another legal victory yesterday in its offensive against spammers, which ClickZ covered in depth last month . The latest victory is a $6 million award against Scott Richter's shady Media Breakaway affiliate marketing network handed down by the American Arbitration Association. The AAA is not a court but rather a private concern that's commonly involved in business dispute resolution and written into contracts for that purpose. Also under the AAA order,

One hundred hours later, opinion makers still can't agree on whether Yahoo's search ads deal with Google was a brilliant move long overdue or the beginning of the end. For those in the latter camp, perhaps the most stinging indictment came from Joe Nocera, who wrote in the Times that Yahoo has "chosen to become a pawn of the most dominant company on the Internet." That's a strong remark, given the deal allows Yang & Co.

French advertising group Publicis is experiencing strong growth in interactive, according to its CEO Maurice Levy. In an interview with French business daily La Tribune, reported by Reuters, Levy said the group was on track to beat its target of generating 25 percent of its sales from online by 2010. "In the first three months of the year, 18 percent of our sales came from the )Internet( and the interactive sector," he said.

Over the weekend, a Google search for "iPhone applications" turned up an assortment of sponsored links. Google Mobile appeared as the top sponsored link in the right-hand column. )See right.( Visitors who clicked on that link were directed to applications, including maps and search, designed for the iPhone or BlackBerry. And, AT&T was touting its " Media Mall ," a site to download games , ringtones, and other applications for cell phones.

Denuo SVP Todd Krieger today joins ClickZ's roster of Experts, providing insights into the evolution of video content creation, distribution, and monetization. Look for Todd to examine a wide range of topics, everything from watershed moments and cultural shifts in audience consumption to CPMs. You'll find his first column here . Before joining Denuo, Todd was executive producer at Yahoo Media Group and senior manager of business development at Microsoft TV. Welcome, Todd !

Look out spyware perps. Today Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection Deputy Director Eileen Harrington told members of the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that stronger penalties for perpetrators of spyware might be a good idea. "Legislation authorizing the Commission to seek civil penalties in spyware cases could add a potent remedy to those otherwise available to the Commission," said Harrington, according to an FTC statement .

If the mobile Web is following in the footsteps of the Internet, then Go2 Wireless's announcement today that it's begun offering animated mobile banner units should come as no surprise. The company first rolled out the 10- and 15-second loop animations within mobile banners as early as the beginning of the year, and will now offer the unit to all clients. Early advertisers include Best Buy and the Navy. The Web-based animated banner has not always been well received.

The European Union still could intervene in the use of a controversial ad-targeting technology by U.K. ISP British Telecom. B.T. has admitted it conducted trials of controversial ad-targeting technology from Phorm without the knowledge or consent of its customers, in 2007. In response to complaints from B.T. customers, the U.K. information commissioner's office stated in May it would not pursue B.T. over its actions, or potential breaches of European privacy laws. However,

The Webby Awards , which honors excellence on the Internet, insists winners adhere to one simple rule when making an acceptance speech: Keep it to five words. That's an ingredient for keeping things interesting at the event, which took place Tuesday night at Cipriani Wall Street in lower Manhattan. Take TBWA\Media Arts Lab, which won in the online commercial for category " Don't Give Up on Vista ," referring to Microsoft's operating system. "In Steve Jobs we trust,