While search got a knock on the door from the feds, Facebook made its facelift permanent and digital got a shot in the arm from leading CMOs.

Google is well on its way to becoming an evil monopoly, say competitors like Microsoft and -- increasingly -- advertisers through trade groups like the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). But despite the Justice Department's decision to up the stakes in its review of the search giant's proposed deal with Yahoo, regulators may be missing the larger point. 

When The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had hired ace litigator and former Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Sanford Litvack to helm its Google inquest, John Battelle wrote that the news is likely "keeping the folks up late at night over at Google."

But what's keeping the folks up late on the agency side isn't what has Justice worried, says Andrew Lovasz, VP of search marketing for Moxie Interactive.

"The fundamentals of the advertising business aren't going to change overnight because they're still dependant on clients' budgets," says Lovasz. "But what's really interesting here is that a lot of agencies are seeing that if the deal goes through, there won't be nearly enough transparency in the search market."

Unlike the display space, Google's search buying process is a relative black box, according Lovasz, who says regulators ought to be focused on the transparency issue first and price second.

It's that lack of transparency that is beginning to "bug agencies," Lovasz says. But whether Litvack and the Justice Department approach the Google/Yahoo deal with a web-savvy outlook remains to be seen.

Facebook's facelift
Facebook users who fear change got a rude awakening if they logged into their accounts this week to find that the social network has now mandated that all members use the redesigned interface. But for those who believe that social networking is an egocentric utopia where the content is first and foremost about the user, the redesign is a breath of fresh air, according to Adam Broitman, director of strategy at Crayon.

While some believe putting News Feeds front and center was a Beacon-style ploy to inject more advertising into the site (Facebook recently launched its Engagement Ads program), Broitman says he sees the redesign as a nod to users, the majority of whom are there to interact with their friends.

For Broitman, a great example of the kind of value advertisers will be able to create within Facebook came about after seeing an ad for "Burn After Reading," the new film from Joel and Ethan Coen.

"The other day I saw a click-to-play video in the right rail," says Broitman. "It was for the new Coen brothers movie (it is stated in my profile that I love the Coen brothers), and I had not yet seen the trailer. I watched the trailer and gave my impression on whether or not I thought the film would be any good. Later that day, friends of mine started commenting on whether or not we wanted to see the film, and we eventually made plans to go see the movie when it came out. This was a social advertising moment of Zen!"

More Zen on the way?
While the overall U.S. economic outlook can best be described as bleak, digital got some good news early this week in the form of the Epsilon CMO Survey, which found that two-thirds of the 175 CMOs queried reported an increase in their digital budgets. Of those who saw an increase in their digital budgets, 60 percent saw a drop in traditional spending.

According to Bryan Wiener, CEO of digital agency 360i, the shift has a lot to do with the accountability available to marketers in the digital space.

"In an uncertain and challenging economic environment, marketers will turn to more targetable and measurable media to better assess their return on ad spend," Wiener says. "In addition, as people spend more and more time online -- to shop, find information, socialize with friends -- marketers have to move more dollars online in order to engage them where they spend their time. Digital changes the game by providing the ability to hyper-target and engage customers with an interactive brand experience."

Michael Estrin is deputy editor at iMedia Connection.