Here’s a front-page story the New York Times would rather not be running: The paper is warning readers to be aware of bogus ads running on its Web site.

The paper says “some readers” have seen unauthorized pop-up ads promoting antivirus software on NYTimes.com, and warns visitors who see the ad not to click on it but to restart their browsers instead. While the Times doesn’t spell this out, it has likely had its site hijacked by a “malware” scammer who is trying to trick visitors into installing pernicious software onto their hard drives.

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The more I hear about the supposed plan for an Internet cafe company to buy the world’s best-known illegal file-sharing site, the more I think that the whole thing is a farce.

So this one doesn’t even faze me: Swedish regulators are looking into insider trading charges at Global Gaming Factory X, which saw shares jump several days before it said it would buy The Pirate Bay.

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What do you do when your job working for a big music label disappears? You go to work for a pirate-friendly file-sharing service that’s being sued by the big music labels.

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Apple says its customers have downloaded one billion apps for the iPhone and iPod touch from its iTunes store. You can learn more by reading one of the many stories about the milestone or by visiting Apple’s site. Or you can visit the homepages of big Web publishers like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or CNET.com, all of which have once again handed over prime real estate to Apple for another intrusive/interesting ad.

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Next to no news from the Apple earnings call this afternoon, which is just the way Apple execs like their earnings calls. Once again, the company provided no information about CEO Steve Jobs’s health except to note that he is still scheduled to come back to work in June. And the company continued to pooh-pooh the concept of netbooks–supercheap, supersmall laptops with very little horsepower that are the hottest part of the PC business right now.

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SpiralFrog, the free music service that also doubled as an awesome money-burning machine, has finally given up the ghost. The site, which industry sources said had been shopping itself in recent months, shut down last night, and any remaining assets are being handed over to creditors.

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Forget the blowup between Warner Music Group and Google over YouTube money: The big labels need to be on the world’s biggest video site, and YouTube could use the music videos. Which is why the solution may look very much like the arrangement the labels made with MySpace last year. Call it YouTube Music.

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