Publicis, the giant French ad holding company, has been warning Web publishers to be “hyper-vigilant” about other bogus ads like the ones the Times mistakenly sold, which were purportedly for Vonage (VG) but were actually designed to distribute malware. Publicis, whose units includes Starcom, Digitas, Optimedia, MediaVest, Zenith, and Spark, has been sending out letters warning publishers to be wary of the rogue ads, which it describes as an “industry issue.”

The catch: It appears that the only way to combat the attacks, at least in the near-term, is to do something that runs counter to industry trends: Throw bodies at the problem. Publicis wants publishers to individually verify the ad orders they receive, which would be a nonissue for traditional media but is a problem for Web publishing, which increasingly relies on automation. Mediapost:

The incidents have exposed potential vulnerabilities in on online publishing security, and are causing advertisers, agencies and publishers alike to reassess the processes they use to conduct business, especially as they interact with an increasing array of third-party intermediaries–advertising networks, exchanges, etc.–many of which place insertion orders automatically and without human intervention. The solution, as the Times’ and Publicis’ new policies suggest, is to reinsert human interaction into the process–at least for the time being.

Whoops. That whole thrust of Web publishing is get humans as far away as possible from buying and selling decisions: The ad exchange that Google (GOOG) launched last month, for instance, is designed to handle those tasks in milliseconds. Now think about how long it takes to pick up the phone to actually confirm that ad buyers are who they say they are [shudder].

It’s possible that this is simply butt-covering on the part of Publicis (these attacks have been out there for quite some time) and that this will blow over soon. But I don’t think so. Which means the ascent of Web ads may slow down, just a bit, as the industry figures out just how many humans it will take to fight the problem.

I liked it, actually. The Twitter dudes came off just fine. And if Twitter fans thought Dowd came off as condescending or smarmy, then they ought to brace themselves, because there’s going to be plenty more like this.

But here’s my real question: Who is operating Maureen Dowd’s Twitter account? Because according to her own column, she can think of other things she’d like to do than Tweet:

“I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account. Is there anything you can say to change my mind?”

But as Editor & Publisher editor Greg Mitchell notes, someone opened an account with Dowd’s name last year. It’s not scintillating stuff–like many journalists’ accounts, it’s basically a promotional device for her work–but it does have some 5,000 followers.

Of course, Twitter doesn’t actually require people to prove they are who their Twitter accounts say they are, so it’s entirely possible Dowd’s account is a fake, set up by a well-meaning fan. My hunch: It’s actually set up by the Times itself and operated by a well-meaning staffer. (Tellingly, the account isn’t “following” anyone, which pretty much anyone who gives Twitter a try does at some point.)

UPDATE: I’m wrong, says NYT spokesperson Catherine Mathis. Or at least, I’m probably wrong: “It does not belong to Maureen Dowd. It appears as though it was created by someone outside The Times.”

Either way, you’d think Dowd would have noted the account at sometime in the last few months–perhaps while she was prepping for her interview at Twitter HQ.

I’ve asked the Times (a bit sheepishly, I’ll admit) for details on this pressing story. I’ll update as soon as I get them.

Editors’ Note: December 22, 2008
Earlier this morning, we posted a letter that carried the name of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy.

This letter was a fake. It should not have been published.

Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.

We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoë’s office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers.

This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.

We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.

We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future.”

Expect this story to generate a lot of new media rulz! from the blogosphere. But you can file that in the same place you put the “Twitter is like a news wire, only better!” arguments. I’m just glad the Times can afford to have a staff big enough to verify the authenticity of every letter it prints. And I worry that this won’t be the case in the near future.