Forbes' Elisabeth Eaves recently looked at efforts by national and global brands to market themselves as local businesses, and concluded that whether or not such tactics deserved to be decried as local washing "depends on your definition of local." Jackson Free Press publisher Todd Stauffer singles out Eaves and her argument in a column this week. "Actually, the definition of local isn't up for grabs, and it isn't just marketing," he writes. "The entire concept of 'local' is fundamental both to America's economic recovery and to the potential for progress and self-sufficiency for our local communities." Stauffer goes on to explain that what Eaves and other local-washing defenders are "are doing is purposely conflating the concepts 'local' and 'locale.'"

The advertising broker and technology firm Pontiflex says in a recently released report that marketers will pay publishers an average price of $2.27 for each reader that fills out a form with their name, email address and other bits of personal information. "That hefty price suggests publishers should consider abandoning cheap ads sold for guaranteed prices and should instead try to use space on their web pages to convince readers to turn over their personal information," Forbes' Evan Hessel writes.