The terms of service for Google's popular email product Gmail contains the same language as the Chrome TOS mentioned above, but it's also got this Orwellian gem tucked in it:

Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service.

Not that Google is actually going to stop you from sending that dirty email about sex and drugs to your dirty friends, but they could.

Facebook is the Internet's most popular photo-sharing site. Which, according to Facebook's terms of service, means Facebook could be a very profitable stock photo firm if it wanted to be.

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

The terms of service for YouTube also say that uploading anything onto the site gives them license to do whatever with it. More obnoxiously, YouTube also says that even after you delete content from the site, they're allowed to keep it forever:

You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Comments are perpetual and irrevocable

My favorite obnoxious terms-of-service clause is in the license for AOL's instant messenger client. You're only allowed to use AIM for lawful purposes, so no pinging your friends about smoking up or scalping tickets. Also, turns out you can't say dirty words or obscene things over the service, which probably means most people can't talk about their bosses, last night's overtime loss, or that girl in fourth period:

You May Use the AIM Products for Lawful Purposes Only. You may use AIM Products for lawful purposes only. You may not post on or transmit through community areas (e.g., message boards, chat, e-mail, calendars, instant messaging products) or other means any material that (1) violates or infringes in any way upon the rights of others, (2) is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, vulgar, obscene, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable, (3) encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, (4) gives rise to civil liability, (5) violates any policies posted in any community areas or (6) otherwise violates any law. You also may not undertake any conduct that, in AOL's judgment, restricts or inhibits any other user from using or enjoying the AIM Products, including without limitation the community areas.

Both Mozilla's terms of service for Firefox and Microsoft's EULA for Internet Explorer 7 don't have these weird clauses.

In the view of one Madison avenue agency exec, Google bought YouTube back in 2006 "because they didn't want someone else to, and now they don't know what to do with it." Clients don't always want to take over an entire site and would prefer to purchase a smaller run of good inventory. Site takeovers can work as an expensive one-off — think movie premieres — but don't help promote a brand over the long term. But Google doesn't have a YouTube product to serve that need. As a result, the exec told Valleywag, the YouTube sales people try to sell the same things over and over again, just with new names. Well, at least now they're trying new sizes, too.

I've no plans to vote for McCain, but I'm all too aware that if the numbers were the other way around, I could collect a couple thousand bucks this afternoon in MSM assignments on Barack's "YouTube victory" and how it changes politics forever. As is, I'm reduced to pitching The Weekly Standard.

The theme of people killing people with cars has been explored as fantasy in American motion pictures for years. The car chase is at the very core of popular cinema. Just as the camp of Ben Hur's chariot race was dispensed with in the first scene in Rome's arena from Gladiator, so does Death Race dispatch with the camp of Roger Corman's earlier production, Death Race 2000.

Then, "T-video satellite" broadcast the race. Now? Choose from a hundred different angles and follow the driver you most closely identify with, all for the low, low price of $99 a heat or $250 for the full package. Mario Kart-style power-ups on the track complete the illusion of "interactivity," allowing viewers the visceral feeling that they alone decide who lives and who dies — just like in a videogame.

The stargazing optimists at our sister site io9 noted that buried beneath the subtext of Death Race's villain, a prison warden played by Joan Allen, lay the hungry heart of a pageview baiter:

She's purely interested in profit, and driving Internet traffic to the webcast of the Death Race, and she'll do anything to get more online subscribers. The only time she's freaked out or flustered is when she thinks she won't get enough hits.

What's been missed are the otherwise expository references to Nascar — and it's there we find that Death Race's dystopia is our reality.

Dale Earnhardt Sr. was not the first man to die racing stock cars, but he was the first man to die racing stock cars on global television. And now he lives on as the subject of a snuff film that neither YouTube nor any other online video site will ever be able to censor from the Internet. Why would they? In fact, YouTube practically encourages viewers to watch, thanks to scripts which automatically complete search strings as you start to type "Dale."

The results simultaneously belie just how popular the various viewpoints from which you can watch a man die in a car crash — three angles amassing 88,251 views in just the first result, complete with a user-generated, slideshow-mashup hagiography to the tune of Freebird. And that doesn't even count all the car chases in Cops or on the nightly news in Los Angeles.

Shortly before driving off into a Southern California sunset, the original Frankenstein from Death Race 2000 stares down the hood of his hot rod at an obsequious television announcer. Frankenstein has unilaterally declared the deadly race over. The announcer, facing unemployment, cries "Sure it's violent, but that's the way we love it — violent, violent, violent!" Carradine runs him over. Go ahead, watch the clip online.

And hey look, Craig Newmark! And Digg is there, too, suggesting Google might have been serious about buying them when they planned this event. Upload your video to YouTube with this "YouTube Upload Station. The YouTube Upload Station is so much more than a MacBook with a T1 connection because it is a democracy engine.

Go, Google. Go, Barack. Go, getting praise in all the papers for reaching out with social media. But please, massages from a company that misspells iPhone? Save that for the Republicans.

(Photos by Steve Rhodes)

A friend who's a contractor says Steve Chen is building a tech-heavy penthouse on the top floor of the Ritz-Carlton. Lots of video screens and stuff. That's all I know.

I'm just guessing that this isn't in the neoclassical Ritz-Carlton hotel on Nob Hill, but in the residential apartments built atop the old de Young building that's managed by Ritz-Carlton. When Chen is all moved in, I imagine mid-Market penthouse neighbors Mayer and Al Gore dropping by, the latter with a stern lecture on the importance of climate change and the former with a box of cupcakes. (Photo by Allan Ferguson)

Silicon Valley has a lot of noise, a lot of hype. People are very excited about all of the Facebook stuff, Facebook applications. It's just been a huge hype over the last year when actually ... there isn't really that much value. It's just a bubble. It's almost a distraction. Whereas here, there is certainly less activity. But at the same time, you don't have these bubbles of nonsense out here.

YouTube execs estimated that if just 10 percent of the service's users took advantage of live streaming, the company would have to add 20 to 25 percent to its huge server and bandwidth infrastructure to support it.

Sounds like another sign that YouTube's popularity, while giving it a great position in the market, has become something of an Achilles' heel — every video played, every user added cost the company money, and neither creators or consumers are paying. Advertisers are only interested in a small percentage of videos on the site, and YouTube can't even sell all of that inventory. So adding new features such as live streams or improving quality would only serve to dig Google's $1.65 billion money pit even deeper. The episode is enlightening in one regard, though. It demonstrates how much influence YouTube's founders have at the company — little to none.

(Photo by Ben Cooper

However, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law which sets up a process for notifying sites like YouTube of copyright infringements, issuing a counternotice is not so simple. YouTube requires the notice must be submitted by mail. The IOC is officially liable to both the creator of the video and to YouTube for legal fees and other costs related to improper copyright claims, but I doubt Google would risk their rights to broadcast Olympic highlights to Rwandans by holding the IOC accountable.

Alas, no luck. We called Scoble and asked if he had any footage of Hunter. "God knows," says Scoble. He filmed Edwards while working for Podtech, the ill-fated online-video startup which was recently sold for a pittance. His raw footage from that period, if any, is jumbled with the rest of Podtech's assets.

But Chuckumentary videographer Chuck Olsen, a contributor to Rocketboom, did catch Hunter in one of his videos of the Edwards campaign. Fast forward to 1:07 and you'll get a quick glimpse of Hunter, earning part of her $114,000 behind the camera. Update: Olsen has sold the video to the AP and taken it off Revver.

1. Open YouTube.com in your browser.

2. After the site loads, find the option in your browser for editing cookies. Here's the instructions for Firefox 3.0:

• Click the Tools->Options (Windows) or Firefox->Preferences (Mac) menu option
• On the Preferences pane that appears, click the Privacy Tab.
• In the Privacy panel, Click on Show Cookies...
• In the Cookies panel that appears, search for "youtube" in the search box.
• Look for a cookie named "youtube.com GEO"
• Select the GEO cookie and click Remove Cookie

3. In the same browser window that has YouTube loaded, set your own GEO cookie by trying to open this URL in your browser. Be sure to remove any line breaks that might creep in from cutting and pasting.

 javascript:alert(document.cookie="GEO=bb84fb3cd7df0311bb5026df4d6b524fcxkAAABLUixubyByZWdpb24sc2VvdWwsLCwsLC0x; path=/;domain=.youtube.com") 

You should get a dropdown dialog box that says "The page at http://youtube.com says GEO=bb84fb3cd7df0 ..." This is not an error message, it's a notification that you've set the cookie successfully.

4. You should have a rigged GEO cookie for YouTube now. Try opening youtube.com/beijing2008. If you don't get the splashy red Beijing 2008 page shown above, you may not have set the cookie correctly.

Online schedules: NBC's Olympics listings takes a bit of work (you have to enter your ZIP code and select a television provider, even if you just want online listings). However, once you've done the work, it'll send you notifications when events you've selected will be broadcast. Jason Kottke has found Google and iCal calendars, which will allow you a bit more flexibility in setting up alerts, and the New York Times has a schedule as well. And of course, there's an official schedule from the organizers in China, with times listed for Beijing's time zone (16 hours ahead of San Francisco, 13 hours ahead of New York) — probably the best place to go for daily updates, as smog and weather may upset the schedule.

Sling Media's Slingbox: For those with more money than time, the best solution might be a Slingbox. Then you can beam your home satellite or cable signal over the Internet to your laptop, desktop, or iPhone, and remotely switch between NBC and MSNBC.
Pros: You can get great quality, even HD, if your home Internet connection is fast. There is SlingPlayer software available for a range of not just operating systems but handheld devices as well.
Cons: Prices start at $129.99 and your selection of Olympics coverage is limited to what's available from your satellite or cable provider, which means missing early heats and niche events and having to put up with tape delays by the networks.

International proxies: It is possible to watch live streams from other countries, such as BBC Sports from the UK or CBC Sports from Canada, by configuring your browser to run through an anonymous proxy. I recommend using Mozilla's Firefox browser with the FoxyProxy add-on installed. Xroxy has a handy list of proxies which you can sort by country to find proxies in the UK or Canada — which must be anonymous, and preferrably running the SOCKS protocol. Your best bet is to get a geeky British or Canadian friend to install a proxy on their machine for you and your Yankee friends. The latency can be frustrating, but once you get a stream started it will work fine.
Pros: Quality streams from legitimate providers, and if you're accustomed to jingoistic U.S. coverage, the charming accents from the Beeb's announcers and the humble mien of the Canadians can be quite refreshing.
Cons: Takes some technical know-how to set up, and proxies come and go. You might miss an event because you're too busy fiddling with your settings or a proxy fails when too many people sign on.

Video on demand: If you're running Windows Vista, you can download events using TVTonic for "Olympics on the Go." Torrent client Azureus works on any system to help download events after the fact, especially the most popular ones like tennis, football, boxing and basketball — Torrentz cross-site search of multiple BitTorrent indexes should make it easy to find the Spain versus China women's basketball game you might miss tomorrow. YouTube's official channel is blocked — even using international proxies — though a reader came up with a crack that works for now. Other less thoroughly policed online video sites like Veoh, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Megavideo will also have videos.
Pros: Torrents will be high quality and work for anyone, while video-sharing sites will be easiest to use.
Cons: Nothing will be live, obviously, and no one knows how long video clips will remain on sharing sites.

P2P Streams: The way I'll be watching online will is through MyP2P, a site that catalogs live sports and television streams from around the Web, listed by event. It helps to run Windows, though not necessarily Vista, because many streams require software downloads — check out MyP2P's beginners guide for tips, including where to find software downloads and optimization settings. I ended up finding live BBC coverage of the opening ceremonies via Justin.tv, which ran just fine in my browser. If you can't find the channel you want in the media format you prefer, check wwiTV, TV For Us, TV Channels Free, Channel Chooser or BeelineTV among others.
Pros: Free and fairly easy once you've installed most of the media players listed by MyP2P. And it's fun to watch coverage from other countries — I'll be watching all my football with spanish-speaking announcers whenever possible.
Cons: Quality is hit-or-miss, stream links come and go, and you have to think ahead in terms of scheduling to make sure you've got all the necessary programs installed. Also, Mac users will want to install Windows XP through Parallels or Fusion for the widest selection of channels.

Because an appearance on a political blog was enough to surprise the New York Times's Saul Hansell into remarking on an instance he found "festooned with ads." Though the screenshot featured a video taken from television news and therefore the thumbnail itself was already overly busy with infographics, which contributed most to the impression of the "gaudiness of MySpace." The fact that one of the Times's technology bloggers took so long to take note of an AdSense video unit in the wild tells the real story — even with the promise of a slightly less pitiful revenue sharing check, nobody is using the thing.

Basic tools to help creators and other uploaders — like an upload status bar or a timer to let you know when an uploaded clip has been transcoded — are missing. For large clips, this can be maddening. Make a mistake uploading a clip? Good luck trying to replace the clip you've already uploaded with another. And if you accidentally upload the same clip twice, that's just time lost, since even with new descriptions set it'll be flagged as a "duplicate" and deleted. If your audio suddenly sounds terrible, its because YouTube forces it through a blunt compression filter. But hey, you can add funny captions to your videos!

When it comes to user experience for content creators, Vimeo and Blip.tv beat it soundly. But then why should YouTube care? If you want access to viewers who will inevitably slag you and your work in the comments, you'll have to put up with it to a degree. Better to post your content to YouTube via third-party tools like TubeMogul, which will also cross-post your video to multiple sites — making it the one-stop shop for content creators looking to publish that YouTube might have been.

The suit was filed in Rome civil courts, and will certainly test the Italian implementation of the European Union Copyright Directive — a law similar to the DMCA in the U.S., but considered a little more friendly to copyright holders. It can't help YouTube that the case will be argued in a country where Berlusconi was just reelected to another term as prime minister after being acquitted last year of corruption charges stemming from allegations of bribing judges. (Photo by AP/Andrew Medichini)

Because while Avril Lavigne's manager Terry McBride believes the company owes him $2 million, even he admits that the calculations which produced that number are largely theoretical. The $15 CPM McBride estimates YouTube commands seems optimistic based on previously reported numbers.

It also makes me wonder about YouTube's notoriously unreliable metrics — if YouTube can't figure out how many advertising impressions it sold in order to remunerate content creators, advertisers should be skeptical of any data the company provides on inventory available, impressions delivered and demographics reached.

Nonsense. How typically self-important of Internet users, to think that Viacom cares about the dozens of South Park videos they watched. Viacom is not being disingenuous in saying it never meant to violate Internet users' privacy, I've come to believe.

So why are they seeking the data? The case revolves around the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives Internet service providers a "safe harbor" for hosting copyrighted content. But that protection rests on the notion that the people who operate a website don't really know what's on it.

If Viacom can show YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, or other top officials, viewed copyrighted content while logged into the site, wouldn't that weaken YouTube's rights under the DMCA? Even worse, what if Hurley or Chen uploaded copyrighted clips themselves?

Tellingly, in reaching a deal to protect YouTube users' privacy, Viacom and Google excluded data about YouTube and Google employees' use of the site.

Google's best defense might be to go negative, airing reports about Viacom executives' use of the site. That might not give YouTube any more legal protection — but it would make its legal foes squirm. Viacom's Ifilm subsidiary, for one, has been caught hosting copyrighted content without permission.

There's one thing that might save Chad and Steve: They've never seemed that interested in online video. The pair, both former PayPal employees, stumbled onto the idea, and conceived of YouTube first as a site to host shopping videos for eBay listings, then as a video-dating site. They've always been more interested in cynically exploiting online video as a business than exploring the potential of the medium. An announcement of Google's sale to YouTube is one of the few times the two actually made an appearance on it.

So there's the irony: The less Chad and Steve used YouTube, the more likely they'll come out of this lawsuit unscathed. But Viacom's legal strategy suggests that every video they viewed will count against them.

Hot-girl pics are to Digg users as lists are to editors. Unashamedly, we present the 50 hottest girls on Digg (okay, fine, the first 50 hot girls we found on Digg), and checked their profiles to determine whether they were likely to be real or fake. Then we built a spreadsheet to calculate their "Popular Ratios" — the percentage of their submissions that hit Digg's front page — individually and as a group. The surprising result:

These hot girls only managed to get their submissions to Digg's front page 4.3 percent of the time. What's more, the women we deemed real have an aggregate hit rate of 6 percent, while those with apparently fake profiles only got their stories to Digg's front page 0.15 percent of the time. So much for the conventional wisdom. Maybe the dudes pretending to be girls on Digg aren't trying to get on the homepage — they just like to pretend to be girls. With big boobs. Whatever floats your boat, guys.

The list:

Mariana Peyton: An 18-year-old female from Rio de Janeiro (BR) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: WALL-E: A World Without Us
Recent comment: On "Teen pregnancies at 30-year low" — "This is really great for the whole country. Teen pregnancies can ruin lives."
Recent submission: The Global Warming Myth
Presence elsewhere on the Web: An Orkut profile, where she only has male fans.
Real or Fake? Fake! Fewer teen pregnancies are good for Brazil? Caught!

KenSPT: A 25-year-old dude from Stratford, CT (US) who joined Digg on June 27, 2007
Recent digg: McCain and Obama's Plans to Combat Climate Change
Recent comment: On "Well, At Least They Are Being Honest" — "Wow, just wow."
Recent submission: Why White Castle Cheeseburgers Are Full of Awesomeness ...
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blank profile on GameSpot featuring another woman's face.
Real or Fake? Fake! "A 25-year-old dude." Too easy.

Kelly: A 28-year-old girl from TN (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 11 Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines
Recent comment: On "30 Ways to Increase Website Traffic" — "Relly did not understand how it helps my site to drive traffice"
Recent submission: Free online Dating site
Presence elsewhere on the Web: On Digg rival Mixx, where she's submits things like: "Free Software for Removing SPYWARE Virus."
Real or Fake?Fake! Spammer!

Emilia: A 25-year-old female from New York (US) who joined Digg on April 2nd, 2008
Recent digg: "12% of street sex workers raped by cops"
Recent comment: On "The World’s Largest Swimming Pool [PICS]" — awesome pics ;-)
Recent submission: "Why Spain Wins Euro 2008 (NSFW)" — picture of a naked woman with Spain-themed body paint.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?Fake! Real person, but her latest submission? Boobies.

oyta: A 25-year-old girl from campulung (RO) who joined Digg on April 28, 2008
Recent digg: Summer is the Time to Focus on Building Your Child's Skills
Recent comment: On "BOX / Romania six finalists to tour "Centura gold"" — "Hai Romania,cei mai buni sportivi..."
Recent submission: Cristiano Ronaldo, consolat the beloved (Gallery)
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None to be found.
Real or Fake? Real! Who but a Romanian woman submits scandalous pictures of ripply men with muscles and then comments in Romanian?

Binoy xavier joy (binoyxj) A person from Kochi (IN) who joined Digg on September 9, 2007
Recent digg: Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics
Recent comment: On "7 Quick Tips for Branding Yourself Through Social Networking" — "Good post!!!"
Recent submission: JS-Kit Acquires Commenting Sytem Provider HaloScan
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Indyarocks, an Indian social network site. There, Binoy xavier joy is a male.
Real or Fake?Fake! The image file name is Shilpa-Shetty, also the name of a famous Indian actress.

espl4:
A 25-year-old female from Paris (FR) who joined Digg on March 27, 2008Recent digg: Not typical underwear for men
Recent comment: On "New Short Spikey Hairstyles for Women Pictures gallery" — "Unfortunally, i love long hair, but this is fun to have short haircut! But short hairstyle is the best condition of the hair in summer time!"
Recent submission: Valentino: legend continues
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A del.icio.us profile chock full of fashion links.
Real or Fake?Real! Her comment claims she has long hair and her picture backs it up. This is a fashion blogger, on Digg to promote herself.

danna 88: A 20-year-old girl from US (US) who joined Digg on June 16, 2008
Recent digg: California to Legalize Weed for Everyone
Recent comment: On "This is how I make my bread" — "i ate a piece after watching this video. I also think i'm pregnant now."
Recent submission: "Thoughts on Sports Sponsorships"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace profile.
Real or Fake?Real! A reminder: only women get pregnant. Also, the woman on the MySpace profile looks similar enough.

sonia5880: A 27-year-old grrrl from Deerfield beach, FL (US) who joined Digg on December 11, 2007
Recent digg: Lists Are Taking Over America (Not Just Digg)
Recent comment: On "Better Gas Mileage By Tailgaiting Semi-Trucks" — "Nice, but, We need more ways to save then practically killing yourself!"
Recent submission: 17 Home Remedies to Cure & Prevent Yeast Infections
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Freelance Webmarket profile, listing her as a SEO Expert.
Real or Fake?: Fake! She's might be a woman, but that's not her picture. She's a clever SEO marketer working for Nativeremedies.com.

Michelle Cehn (Michiko280) A 21-year-old girl from Oakland, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 6, 2008
Recent digg: Cute alert - baby panda story and video
Recent comment: On "The Auschwitz album (+PICS)" — I fear that one day we will look upon our heartless slaughter of animals and treatment of animals in labratories in much the same way. No living sentient being deserves the horrific suffering that comes with factoy syle killing.
Recent submission: Rallies Intensify as 50,000 Koreans Protest US Beef
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blog called "A Search For Compassion," which includes a post about animal rights activism on Digg and Facebook.
Real or Fake?: Real! Not to overgeneralize, but dudes don't care that much about cute animals or their "rights."

Jennifer Slayton: A 22-year-old girl from New York (US) who joined Digg on September 25, 2007.
Recent digg: Green Hotels in the UK
Recent comment: On "Do police cameras reduce crime?" — "it's obvious!"
Recent submission: 5 Famous Myths About the Birth fo the United States
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Last seen on Propeller back in Dec, 2007.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Rarely comments and has surprisingly very little Googlejuice.

letsgocrzy: A 19-year-old girl from CA (US) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: GameStop's Leaked Xbox 360 Price Drop Info
Recent submission: On "Tila Tequila Update: We Made Someone Mad" — "haha, a little angry are we?"
Recent submission: None
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own blog covering games and plays on various Flash game sites.
Real or Fake?: Real. Not really a submitter but an active Digger nonetheless. Her blog backs up her girl-gamer-geek cred.

Michelle Oshen: A girl from New York, NY (US) who joined Digg on October 6, 2007.
Recent digg: The Ultimate Informercial
Recent comment: On "I usualy prefer to stay away from certain topics I feel strongly about" — ":)"
Recent submission: His Name is Loren Feldman
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own website and a Flickr.
Real or Fake?: Real. Loren Feldman's beau. More mature than the average kids on Digg, interested in web and tech, most likely rubbed off from Loren Feldman.

Briona: A 23-year-old girl from Yarhsire (GB) who joined Digg on January 4, 2008.
Recent digg: Thank You Adobe Reader 9
Recent comment: On "12 Simple Steps To Overcoming Shyness for all geeks" — "Thanks! :)"
Recent submission: The Media Makes Us Confused Or Ignorant 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Fake. Only submits articles from eioba.com, a pseudo-Digg clone that rewrites wire stories. Also, profile picture is a set of boobs. Girls don't do that.

Jess Lesner: A 22-year-old grrrl from Rochester (US) who joined Digg on October 5, 2007.
Recent digg: HSUS Rescures 700 in Worst Puppy Mill Raid in State History
Recent comment: Never commented
Recent submission: The 9 Most Entertaining Little People
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She left her AIM screen name in her profile but no MySpace or Facebook
Real or Fake?: Real. But she might be Chris Hansen.

Allison: A 21-year-old lady from California (US) who joined Digg on April 11, 2008.
Recent digg: What Twitter Would Look Like During a Zombie outbreak [PIC]
Recent comment: On "Final Disaster Movie Poster" — "Carmen Electra's only source of income."
Recent submission: Columbian Hostage Rescue Movie Already in the works
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Real.

Kristen: A 23-year-old lady from The Cuckoo's Nest who joined Digg on December 16, 2007.
Recent digg: Some Clinton staffers going without pay
Recent comment: On "Femme Fatale 4" — "She can't be any older than 8... Do they seriously recruit children that young...?!?!"
Recent submission: Maze Generator lets you watch the birth of a maze 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own photography site
Real or Fake?: Real but not really active in Digg or the Internets. Apparently moved to SF recently.

PF: A 29-year-old lady from Kathmandu (NP) who joined Digg on April 5, 2008.
Recent digg: Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video
Recent comment: On "Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video" — "hiii thank u"
Recent submission: Agra Flights Book To From Cheap Fight Tickets Agra
Presence elsewhere on the Web: 'His' dating profile
Real or Fake?: Fake. Stock photos for profile page. Foreigner with simple grasp of English. Submits Indian news stories. Found dating profile of a man with similar user name, age, and location.

Tina Su: A female from Seattle, WA (US) who joined Digg on October 22nd, 2007.
Recent digg: 6 Things You didn't Know About Fried Chicken
Recent comment: On "Life as a Kid in North Korea (PICS)" — "This is really sad. I wonder how these photos were smuggled out of the country?"
Recent submission: Five Things You need to know about effective Habit Change
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own blog eaches you how to be more effective. Or check her Twitter account.
Real or Fake?: Real. Seems to be working on her lifehacking blog and submitting articles to Digg. Amazon employee in Seattle.

Jen Farland: A 22-year-old female from San Diego, CA (US) who joined Digg on December 26, 2007.
Recent digg: The Incredible Hulk Preview
Recent comment: On "Parents Over Which Gang Toddle Should Join" — "can we go to vegas and put down $100 on this kid getting a life sentence somewhere down the road?"
Recent submission: Soldier's skeletal remains found on Miss base
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence
Real or Fake?: Fake. Comments like a dude and even submitted an article about Hannah Montana's Age Clock. All signs point to being a dude.

iThenticJoce A 21-year-old lady who joined Digg on January 28, 2008
Recent digg: First Shots of Sienna Miller as The Baroness in GI Joe
Recent comment: On "Mop Bucket (a short comedy)" — "I'm just glad I don't have balls."
Recent submission: "A Hitch in the Plan (a short film with a twist)"
Presence elsewhere on the Web:
Real or Fake?: Real! But she's a definitely a professional Digg-submitter for iThentic.com.

Katie Anderson (d4mnit) A 23-year-old girl from Georgia, GA (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 8GB Steel MP4 Player Watch
Recent comment: On "Seven Strange and Wonderful Dishes" — "McDonalds Pizza - so healthful O_o."
Recent submission: Almost IPOD Touch but only for $63
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None. D4mnit is forum slang.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Girls who bite their lips like that don't wear steel mp4 players on their wrists.

papayamaya A female from the United States who joined Digg on June 5, 2007
Recent digg: "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants"
Recent comment: On "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants" — "I met a hot dude on it the other day. w00t!"
Recent submission: "Would YOU eat this candy?!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account that she rarely updates, but features the same picture.
Real or Fake?: Real! The photo isn't too staged and her comments suggest she's attracted to men. But more telling yet: she doesn't use Digg that much.

Mandy (sparkleprincess) A girl who joined Digg on February 28, 2007
Recent digg: Flying Saucer Power Source Discovered: Ionized Air
Recent comment: On "No Trespassing, My First Short Film" — "Don't be such a tampon head. ;)"
Recent submission: "A Palace of Gold Is Sold Off For Its Melt Value"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Too many sparkleprincesses out there to spot just one.
Real or Fake?: Real. Her recent comment came in reply to a gross-out male reacting to a story about menstruation.

Natalia Svoboda (NatalySvoboda) A 28-year-old female who joined Digg on February 1st, 2008
Recent digg: "30 Surefire Ways To Trim An Inch"
Recent comment: On "" — "did you have candidate with whom?"
Recent submission: "12 Human Odd Jobs"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A StumbleUpon profile featuring the same photo, saying she's from the Ukraine.
Real or Fake?: Real! She looks Ukrainian and so does her English.

sara (userxp101) A person from grand rapids, MI who joined Digg on June 9, 2005
Recent digg: "8 reasons you'll rejoice when we hit $8-a-gallon gas"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose has a MySpace" — "damn i wanted to submit this story, but you beat me."
Recent submission: "N.Y. & L.A Airports Using New Revealing Body Scanners"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Xanga blog".
Real or Fake?: Real! Her blog reveals she's getting married.

poshsuicide A person from California who joined Digg on October 13, 2005
Recent digg: "AT&T Announces iPhone 3G pricing plans"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose and Posh...Married?" — You guys are retarded.
Recent submission: "SuicideGirls iPhone PinUp Wallpapers"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A SuicideGirl profile. (NSFW)
Real or Fake?: Real! The Diggnation t-shirt gives it away.

Amanda (amandaw33) A 28-year-old grrrl from Philadelphia area (US) who joined Digg on October 27, 2005
Recent digg: "Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know"
Recent comment: On "Fast Food: Smart Picks on the Go" — "I'm into nuggets y'all I'm into nuggets y'all"
Recent submission: "Kevin Smith's flickr photos
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A largely blank "Team Xbox" profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Finding and submitting Kevin Smith's Flickr photos is a pure Digg-power user move.

houstong74 A 27-year-old girl from the United States who joined Digg on September 6, 2007
Recent digg: "The 5 Worst Computer Virus Attacks of All Time"
Recent comment: On "The 10 Worst PR Blunders in the Blogosphere" — "How about getting my name and my blog name wrong? it is not even about doing any homework at this point. Just copy and paste the dame thing correctly!"
Recent submission: "10 Reasons You Should Not Blog Everyday"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This person is a blogger who knows that a pretty girl's picture will get more Diggs.

Dana (Dana24) A person from Manheim, PA who joined Digg on February 2nd, 2007
Recent digg: "What the Social Web Looked Like in the 1990s"
Recent comment: On "[Pics] The Hot Girls of Digg: Time to show off" — "http://www.myspace.com/gadgetgirl24 (some of us hotties ARE REAL!) "
Recent submission: "ICO reverses its stand on Bluetooth Spamming in UK - now perfectly legal!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: The previously mentioned MySpace profile for Gadgetgirl24.
Real or Fake?: Real! Didn't you read her comment?

Bridget Phetasy: A 29-year-old lady from LA, CA (US) who joined Digg on June 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet
Recent comment: On "Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet" — "brilliant. hilarious. perfect. now bury it."
Recent submission: Tom Brady Ruined My Budding Relationship
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace page, because she's a model. Or you can read about her philosophy about stuff.
Real or Fake?: Real. But that doesn't make you any closer in getting a date with her.

Stephanie S.: A person who joined Digg on November 30, 2007.
Recent digg: Adam Carolla is The Hammer
Recent comment: On "What Man's Best Friends Really Thinks of Barack Obama" — "This is horrible, dogs just pee wherever they can get their paws on, I'm sure they love obama...I think?"
Recent submission: Social Networks Protect You From Dementia
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account lets you keep track of what she's doing.
Real or Fake?: Real. She's actually very insistent on this.

michael s (yeblonski) A 20-year-old guy who joined Digg on February 10, 2008
Recent digg: "10 Free File Shredder Downloads for your PC Security"
Recent comment: On "Amazing Tattoo Breast Implant" — "this is sick!"
Recent submission: "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2008"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Someone calls him a cheater in a GameSpot forum.
Real or Fake?: Fake! A cheater in Call of Duty and Digg.

Denise Capps (DCapps) A grrrl from Hollywood, CA (US) who joined Digg on September 19, 2007
Recent digg: 10 Coolest & Bizarre Batman Mods
Recent comment: On "Sexy Boothbabes E3 Electronic EXPO Girls Models Video Games" — "Nice."
Recent submission: Oompa Loompa Lady
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Flickr profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Girls don't think boothbabes are "nice" nor do they pretend to be men on Flickr.

David (bollywoodkibabe) A 24-year-old guy who joined Digg on March 26, 2008
Recent digg: "SEO for Beginners"
Recent comment: On "PR10.in - Check Page Rank,Complete Domain Analysis,Alexa,Bac" — "Great simple resource."
Recent submission: "SEO and Blogging Tips"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Best way to spam Google with SEO: trade links. Best way to spam Digg: pretend to be a "Bollywood Babe."

Jackie Kira: A 27-year-old female from Japan (JP) who joined Digg on January 18, 2008.
Recent digg: New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron
Recent comment: On "3 Social Networking Sites With A Twist" — "Nice page"
Recent submission: Free ad serving system promotion
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Too good to be true, but this babe is just interested in using Digg to submit scammy and spammy link exchange websites.

Valli Ram: A 48-year-old lady from Chennai (IN) who joined Digg on March 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Skunk forces family out of house for a year
Recent comment: On "Do You Want The Dreams To Come True?" — "Dreams will come true friend provided if you follow certain methods. Here dreams means visualizing your goals and not night dreams which come while you sleep."
Recent submission: Simplest Method of Meditation for Achieving your Goals
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a blog to help you with your relationships.
Real or Fake?: Might be a real person but her profile pic is most likely fake. She's also using Digg to try to market her relationship blog.

Erica Blonde: A 26-year-old female from Ontario, Canada (CA) who joined Digg on May 3rd, 2007.
Recent digg: So You Think You Can Dance: Top 12 Perform
Recent comment: On "Women Playing Second Fiddle to Male Announcers in Radio" — "Do they contribute less but cause they add nothing of value to the conversation, or are they not given the opportunity to contribute in the first place?"
Recent submission: 7 Ways You Can Sell Your Business Vision
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own community blog and she's also apparently an aspiring voice actor.
Real or Fake?: Real.

Natalie Lopez: A 22-year-old grrrl from Vancouver (CA) who joined Digg on March 25, 2008.
Recent digg: The most popular Digg users and domains
Recent comment: On "Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide" — "Peoples medicine is being taken away from them everyday, and the excuse is.. "its federally ILLEGAL" People in California are getting hassled a lot for this. It will be a big relief..."
Recent submission: Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence.
Real or Fake?: If you can't tell by the picture, this girl loves pot. Like crave it. On news that the world might criminalize petty drugs laws she proceeded to submit 25 links of this event. If you love it so much, you should marry it.

FlexiChic A 29-year-old female from Florida (US) who joined Digg on December 5, 2007.
Recent digg: Dart in the Head
Recent comment: On "You can't fix stupid...." — "Stupid is as stupid does! Almost hard to believe."
Recent submission: Funny President Facts
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a MetaCafe account</> but she uses it to pimp her videos.
Real or Fake?: Might be real but the profile picture is fake. It's the pixels. I can tell.

Greg Roberts (whiteblue1942) A 21-year-old dude from Raleigh, NC (US) who joined Digg on February 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Hottest Female Celebrity? [ PICS ONLY!!! ]"
Recent comment: On "Two Women Found Guilty for Raping a Dude in New York!!!" — "haha i would be in the same exact place the very next night and be like "mom...r u there? im all alone.... hope nobody rapes me..." :)"
Recent submission: "Herpes Forum"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Greg Roberts: A 21-year-old dude from NC whose image of himself is a woman with huge fake boobs.

Susan matson (rosinka) A 26-year-old girl from NY (US) who joined Digg on March 12, 2008
Recent digg: "A Very interesting place to live, PIC"
Recent comment: Susan matson hasn't posted any comments recently.
Recent submission: " I see myself on pornsite. "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This is a porn spammer.

Vicki Carr (Vicki86) A 22-year-old girl from Los Angeles, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 16, 2008
Recent digg: "A Look At The Script For Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards"
Recent comment: On "http://www.zlango.com/" — "Every e-mail becomes a visual experience when spiced –up with Zlango icons. Works on Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL mail and Hotmail all support the plug-in."
Recent submission: "Zlango's My Say application just went live on Facebook! "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account, where she's following 888 and only 69 are following her.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Zlango Isn't very savvy at spamming Digg.

Marianna (MariTorchi) A 26-year-old girl from Milano (IT) who joined Digg on November 13, 2007
Recent digg: "Special Valentine's Day Card (you can DIY)"
Recent comment: On "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!" — "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!"
Recent submission: "The Hard Disk You'Ve Been Waiting For [PIC]"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Metacafe profile with no videos.
Real or Fake?: Fake! The picture keeps changing to different body parts of different women.

Recent digg: "The Five Best Ways To Steal Gas...And One Really Bad Way"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Tattoo : Art of tattoo for Pregnant Lady"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Uploaded a bizarre YouTube titled: "Impaled-gross bug removal"
Real or Fake?: Fake! No comments, no favorites, and 372 friends — this is someone's second or third account.

snowhite7185 A girl from San Francisco, CA (US) who joined Digg on March 21st, 2008
Recent digg: "Fighting Crime with Christian Bale and The Dark Knight"
Recent comment: On "Summer Style: Sexy Sustainable Swimwear" — "that handwoven one looks like a spider web...you'd get a mighty funny tan from that one."
Recent submission: "Humor, wit, and sex...all used to champion green"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Reddit profile, promoting many of the same green-friendly stories.
Real or Fake?: Real! A real marketer who uses "Humor, wit, and sex" and Digg to promote eco-friendly stories.

Christina Coleman (C2hristina) A 22-year-old girl from Mississippi (US) who joined Digg on April 26, 2008
Recent digg: "The Bullets Are Real. Your God Is Not"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Ford Nuclear Reactor - Top 10 Craziest Concept Car"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Only submits stories for auto-reviews site loqu.com.

Ayelet Noff (blonde20) A 32-year-old girl who joined Digg on March 28, 2007
Recent digg: "Don't Start With DIGG if you need Social Media Traffic!"
Recent comment: On "How social networking saved New Orleans" — "Great article indeed!"
Recent submission: "Breaking News: Zlango's My Say App Goes Live on Facebook!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile where she's following 583 and followed by 747.
Real or Fake?: Real! She's real, but she's also "a strategist in the world of online marketing, community building, social software, and networking," according to her LinkedIn profile.

Melissa (PantsSupreme) A 23-year-old female who joined Digg on November 12, 2005
Recent digg: "Wall Street Journal on 4chan and Christopher Poole"
Recent comment: On "Barack Obama: My Position On FISA" — "Extremely disappointing :( These companies have been spying on us and will suffer no consequences. Constitution says that retroactive immunity is illegal so why is he supporting this?!"
Recent submission: None.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Citysearch profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Anyone who maintains a Citysearch profile is a real live social media junkie. And probably needs help.

markus 72 (markus72) A 28-year-old guy from US (US) who joined Digg on May 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Meet the Man Who Could Destroy Photogragraphy"
Recent comment: On "CBS News Correspondent: "I'd blow my brains out" — "She's smart. I like her style."
Recent submission: "Walker: I Was Victim of Shotgun Offense"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Ubuntu forums.
Real or Fake?: Fake!

If anyone did the math — let's be generous and give her 150 million total views (neglecting the fact that her most popular video is actually hosted on RCA's channel which she almost certainly won't be paid for) — to have a $2 million dollar check that would mean she earned a $13 CPM with 100 percent inventory fill. From my personal experience, YouTube fills just a tiny tiny part of the potential views and can tell you for a fact that this is a total lie or idiot math from an idiot manager. I disagree with you guys that YouTube was bad and unmonetizable move by Google but if this were remotely true they would be making an astounding amount of money. One of my clients who has done about 30 million total views has made about $15k tops.

Chalk it up to McBride wanting to make good on the role of new media genius he's being made out to be in the press. With a 50 percent revenue split, the total take would have to mean YouTube's selling out its pageviews at a $25 CPM — and Avril Lavigne would be responsible for one percent of YouTube's estimated revenue for 2008.

In yesterday's quarterly earnings conference call, Google's Eric Schmidt said that they'd had most of their success in new ad formats with widget ads, not online video. We doubt Lavigne's fan base is spending all day customizing their iGoogle homepages. The only logical conclusion is that if any $2 million checks are being written, it's by Google to pay for the bandwidth that RCA and McBride are getting for free in order to market Lavigne.