Online advertisers joined the blogger backlash against the Federal Trade Commission’s new guidelines that require bloggers, Twitterers and others to disclose any cash or freebies they’ve received to hawk stuff online.

Noting the new guidelines have created a “firestorm of controversy within the ad-supported interactive-media industry,” Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenberg suggested the FTC rescind the new guidelines.

“These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered,” he wrote in an open letter to the FTC on Thursday. The online-advertising trade group suggested the FTC try a do-over, after opening up the issue for discussion with bloggers and online advertisers…

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In 2001, the last time the Internet ad market crashed, the biggest publishers figured one thing they could do to make the best of things is to make it easier for marketers to buy ads on Web sites. They created standard sizes for banner ads and other formats, through the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That way, an ad created for one site could easily be run on others.

Now some publishers, at least, think that those very standards are now at the root of the industry’s current problems.

When I met up with Charles Tillinghast, the president of MSNBC.com, the other day, he was just coming back from an advertising sales call. So I started by asking how business was going.

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Yahoo (YHOO) reports Q3 results next Tuesday. Brace yourselves for something ugly.

Late Tuesday, Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay provided a pre-announcement update on the prospects for the quarter, and he is not optimistic. Lindsay is looking for revenue of $1.39 billion and pro forma profits of seven cents a share; that is a bit above the consensus at the top line, but two cents below the Street at the bottom line.

He notes that the Interactive Advertising Bureau last week released data that showed paid search grew 24 percent in Q2, compared to 17 percent for display ads, while classifieds and sponsorships fell 6 percent and overall ad spending rose 13 percent.

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Perhaps the scariest term in business today is “behavioral targeting.” It also turns out to be one of the best practices around to assure the combination of consumer choice and marketing effectiveness on the Internet. And in that gap lies a dilemma for the marketing and media industries–and, indeed, for all citizens. For if fear overtakes reality, it could dramatically limit the accessibility and diversity of the Web.

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