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FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. Appear often on news groups, mailing lists, forums, and technical support sites.

FTC: Federal Trade Commission. The federal agency primarily responsible for regulating national advertising.

Factory pack: A premium attached to a product, in or on the packaging.

Fairness Doctrine: Until the mid-1980s, a Federal Communications Commission policy that required broadcasters to provide time for opposing viewpoints any time they broadcast an opinion supporting one side of a controversial issue.

Family brand: A brand name that is used for more than one product, i.e., a family of products.

FAST: FAST is a coalition of the Internet Advertising Bureau (), the ANA, and the ARF that has recommended or is working on guidelines for consumer privacy, ad models and creative formats, audience and ad impression measurement, and a standard reporting template together with a standard insertion order. FAST originated with Proctor and Gamble's Future of Advertising Stakeholders Summit in August 1998. FAST's first guideline, available in March 1999, was a guideline on "Basic Advertising Measures." Our definitions in this list include the FAST definitions for impression and click.

Filtering: Filtering is the immediate analysis by a program of a user request to determine which ad(s) to return in the requested page. A Web page request can tell a Web site or its ad server whether it fits a certain characteristic such as coming from a particular company's address or that the user is using a particular level of browser. The Web ad server can respond accordingly.

Finger: Finger is a program that tells you the name associated with an e-mail address. It may also tell you whether they are currently logon at their system or their most recent logon session and possibly other information, depending on the data that is maintained about users on that computer. Finger originated as part of BSD UNIX. To finger another Internet user, you need to have the finger program on your computer or you can go to a finger gateway on the Web and enter the e-mail address. The server at the other end must be set up to handle finger requests. A ". Plan" file can be created for any user that can be fingered. Commonly, colleges, universities, and large corporations set up a finger facility. Your own Internet access provider may also set up information about you and other subscribers that someone else can "finger." (To find out, enter your own e-mail address at a finger gateway.)

Fixed-sum-per-unit method: A method of determining an advertising budget, which is based directly on the number of units sold.

Flame: Send online communication involving personal attacks and/or derogatory remarks.

Flat-fee program: A program that pays affiliates a predetermined amount (as opposed to a percentage) for every visitor (or first-time visitor) they send to the program-provider merchant's site.

Flat rate: A media rate that allows for no discounts.

Flight: An advertising campaign on a specific Web site for a Specific time period. Also, to send out a creative to a Web site.

Fold: "Above the fold," a term borrowed from print media, refers to an ad that is viewable as soon as the Web page arrives. You don't have to scroll down (or sideways) to see it. Since screen resolution can affect what is immediately viewable, it's good to know whether the Web site's audience tends to set their resolution at 640 by 480 pixels or at 800 by 600 (or higher).

Font: A typeface style, such as Helvetica, Times Roman, etc., in a single size. A single font includes all 26 letters, along with punctuation, numbers, and other characters.

Form: Part of a Web page containing one or more fields for visitors to enter their e-mail address (and/or additional information) accompanied by a Submit button that visitors click on to transfer their e-mail address and other information to you as e-mail or that automatically adds the information to your e-mail database.

Forum: Open, nonsimultaneous discussion on an online service or Web site. Operates like new groups on the Net.

Four Ps: Stands for Product, Price, Place (i.e., distribution), and Promotion.

Front-end systems: The portion of your e-business that is visible to the consumer.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol, Method used to upload and download files between a computer and Internet servers.

Full-service agency: An agency that handles all aspects of the advertising process, including planning, design, production, and placement. Today, full-service generally suggests that the agency also handles other aspects of marketing communication, such as public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing.