The FTC has issued an RFI (“Request for Information”) with regard to its idea to build a “Do Not Spam List” similar to the National Do Not Call Registry.

Umm, guys . . . Spam is already illegal. Enforce that law.

This would be exactly like the federal government providing a web site and toll free numbers where you could go sign up if you didn’t want to be a victim of identify theft.

“Just enter your name, address, date of birth, social security number, all credit card numbers — and we’ll pass out the information and tell everyone not to use it for improper means.”

Hello? Who thought that it would be a good idea to give a bunch of spammers a list and say, “Here’s a bunch of valid email addresses. Don’t spam these people.”

The National Do Not Call Registry is for people to opt-out of something that is otherwise legal. Spam is illegal in any case. Do we need to opt out of being burglarized next?

By the way, while we’re on the subject of Spam, the solution is simple. Let private people sue for every legitimate spam email they receive — just like the junk fax law. We all get junk faxes, but not nearly as many as we used to, and many junk faxers have literally gone out of business over all the people suing them. In this litigious society, letting people go into small claims court for $500 per email would solve the problem of U.S.-based spammers in a hurry.

Of course, spam needs to be carefully defined, and there should be penalties for frivolous suits — like where someone forgets that they did opt in to a list. But leaving it up to the FTC to enforce against only the worst offenders is no solution. Particularly when this is the same agency investigating a Do Not Spam list with a straight face.

For those of us who closely monitor the Google search results for various categories, last night was a big one. Yahoo has finally gone Google free. Anticipating the move since Yahoo purchased Inktomi last year, Yahoo has been displaying its own results, off and on, for some time. At 9:30 Pacific Time last night, the change was made for good.

So now what? First of all, it’s good news for any business dependent upon search engine traffic to make a living. Trying to run a business at the complete mercy of one other company is unnerving at best. Immediately, Google’s share of all searches is likely to go from an estimated 75-80% of all searches to something like 55%.

Second, I’ll guess that most companies’ pay-per-click campaigns just got more expensive. As Yahoo increases market share, Overture clicks become more important. To be at the top of Yahoo you generally have to be one of the top three bidders on Overture. On Google, on the other hand, you can get a decent amount of pay-per-click traffic without bidding into the top three. And by constantly improving your ads you can get even higher without bidding more.

Not so on Overture (and therefore Yahoo). If you want your ad to be seen, you have to bid into the top three, and as more people are jumping into paid search, the bid prices are getting higher and higher. Of course, this has been true for Yahoo for some time, but as Yahoo increases market share (a likely result of having different results than can be found on Google.com) the importance of Google AdWords in the overal marketing mix decreases.

On the plus side, Yahoo’s own search results (a mixture of their own work plus Inktomi), appear to favor the smaller individual business site again. This is good news for SEO professionals who optimize individual web sites for individual businesses. In recent months, Google’s results have become a mish mash of quasi-directories and portal-like web sites where an individual company’s web site in many industries found it difficult to compete against industry “directories.”

Of course time will tell what the public thinks Yahoo’s new results. So far, it looks pretty good. Quality relevant sites I watch that got blasted by Austin (or Florida) are killing it on Yahoo now. But that’s just me on Day One. We’ll see . . . .

If you’ve ever taken flying lessons, one of the first things you learn is the order of priorities in flying an airplane. First, fly the plane. Second, fly it in the right place. Third, talk with other people about where you’re flying.

In the same way, I think Internet marketing can be broken down into three major areas, with a similar order of priority. First, “aviate” relates to search engines — being airborn. Are you even in the game? It doesn’t matter what your site looks like if no one can find it. If people are actually looking for what you sell, your highest priority is to be at the top of the search engines when they’re looking.

Second, “navigate” relates to what’s happening on your actual web site. Focus on capturing as many leads as possible, as a percentage of all site visitors. Not everyone is ready to buy right now; many prospects are just beginning to research. Give them information now in exchange for their email address and then keep in touch. Later, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you. How to increase web site conversion rates is the subject of entire books, but the key is to be focused on what’s important — not cool design, but capturing as many leads as possible once people visit your site one time.

Third, “communicate.” Maximize your use of email. Keep in touch with all your prospects. Keep in touch with all your customers. The funny thing about email is that very few companies email their customers too often. Indeed, despite all the spam that everyone gets, most customers would rather hear from the companies they do business with more often, not less.

So there you have it. To maximize your online results, remember: aviate, navigate, communicate.

As an avid follower of both Internet marketing and politics, I’m enjoying the train wreck watching them run into each other. Howard Dean’s rise and fall reminds me of what many marketers have know for some time. Ultimately, the Internet is just one more medium for telling more people about a product faster. You still have to have a good product.

In Dean’s case, his televised rant in Iowa wasn’t nearly as amusing as the “enhanced and edited” remixes that circulated around the Internet the next day.) In any case, I’ve been thinking for some time that you’d think the Republicans would be at least as well positioned as the Democrats to leverage Internet marketing for political campaigns.

Now, it turns out, Dick Morris is not only saying the same thing but explaining it in detail. If you’re at all interested in how Internet marketing may be applied to politics going forward don’t miss this interview. (By the way, Morris started vote.com in 1993. Anybody who even had a web site in 1993 is pretty cool.)

Highlights include some facts worth considering. One, Dean was the Internet Man because he had an email list of 500,000. The Republicans are quietly amassing something like 20 million email address. And many list members like to click the “buy now” button when the email pushes the right buttons. And Karl Rove knows how to push the buttons. Rove got into politics from a background in direct mail. As Morris righly points out, the Internet is just like direct mail, without the stamps.

Joe Trippi came on the scene as an Internet guru because as a member of the Linux community he understood how ideas can travel fast in email, blogs, e-newsletters, forums, meet-up’s and web sites. (If you don’t know what all of those items are, you will soon.) Karl Rove is a guy who really understands direct marketing.

According to Morris, while Jesse Jackson was raving about voter registration back in the day, the Republicans were actually doing it — quietly, behind the scenes — and ended up registering more voters. Now, the Republicans are not bragging about the size of their list, but it will be interesting to see what they end up doing with it.

Internet users, on average, still tend to be more male, educated, and conservative. Listen to Dick Morris’ take on where things are headed here.

I will speaking next month at the local search conference in Santa Clara sponsored by The Kelsey Group. The topic of the conference is Drilling Down on Local Search: Drivers and Barriers to SME Adoption. This topic is basically something I see every day. How can SME’s (small to medium-sized enterprises) take advantage of search engines.

As a professional search engine strategist, I often talk to small business owners (and even larger business managers) who are not using pay-per-click search engines at all. In the current environment, this is almost always a disaster. By that I mean almost any business, particularly local businesses, could get a lot more highly-qualified leads (almost instantly!) if they just signed up for Overture and Google AdWords accounts and spent a couple hours learning to use it. Even starting from scratch, anyone can get both of these campaigns up and running in a couple hours. Especially if they start with a on the topic of Google Adwords strategy. (Click here for a great book on GoogleAdWords. I am writing one of the chapters in the next edition.)

But very few smaller business owners know this. Indeed, in my experience most of them don’t even believe it when you tell them. And as soon as the leads start rolling in, they can believe it. So here you have tens of thousands of small businesses who want more sales. And you have Google and Overture trying to get the word out. But no one gets paid to tell them, so most of them don’t find out.

It’s the same reason most small businesses drastically underutilize direct mail. there is no sales person who sells “direct mail”, so there is no one to grab the business owner and say, “Hey, try this.”

Another similarity with direct mail (and problem) is that it’s fairly complicated. My firm manages these campaigns every day and it’s tough to keep up with all the changes. The average local store owner does not think he has the time to deal with it. As a result, the ones who do figure it out are cleaning up right now.

Notwithstanding the fact that I probably don’t want to know what most of my friends are typing into search engines, you can try something along these lines and see for yourself. Eurekster is the new search engine based on “social software” concepts to help you find more relevant results faster. In a nutshell, it works on the premise that for a given search term, the actual sites that your friends found relevant would tend to be more relevant for you as well.

Peter Caputa, a proponent of both planned viral marketing and blogging for business has started a blog devoted to discussing the eurekster search engine. Off the top of my head, there are a couple reasons this search engine may take off, sort of like Google did back when it was cool.

First, it is based on the search results from alltheweb.com. Alltheweb is often described as delivering the results similar to what Google used to deliver before Google got all messed up.

Second, as your network expands, sites that have been more relevant amidst everything that comes up in general search results, may indeed be more relevant.

If you would like to join my Eurekster network and try it for yourself email me and I’ll add you to the network.

And if you need to write a eulogy, click here.

The Gipper turns 93 today. Apparently, that’s what happens when you live right.

As James Taranto points out, at the height of the Cold War (which he was largely single-handedly responsible for winning), he was a called a “cowboy,” a “war monger,” and even “stupid.”

Sound familiar?

My latest article. Comments appreciated: brad@mysmartsuite.com.

There may be something to this blog thing after all. These days, more people I talk to even know what they are. Jimmy Carter is starting one. And people write articles on how not to get fired from your blog. And there are blogs about personal life problems. (Hint: if you cheat on your boyfriend, don’t write about it in your blog — on the Internet!

The most interesting thing is that people are starting to wonder if they can help with business. Among other things, blogs are great for keepping disparate members of a team up to date on projects. More on topic, here’s a list of the best search engines for blogs.

Ok, I thought it was kinda cool. A geek talked his wife into naming their new baby — not “junior,” but “2.0″ instead.

Jon Black Cusack 2.0 was born in Michigan last Tuesday. It took him several months to talk her into it, and his birth announcements stated that version 2.0 included many of the features of version 1.0 with some additional features from the mother. Ha.