An Australian entrepreneur has attempted to cheat social news website Digg.com by setting up his own website that profits from the system.
Leon Hill from Brisbane has set up uSocial.net, which boasts that it “sells” votes to promote stories posted on the front page of Digg.com.
Digg’s 35 million users vote on news links to determine which stories will be posted on the front page – more votes means the more likely it is a story will be seen when a user visits the site.
But Hill says he puts a company’s story on the front page of Digg and other sites if they pay a fee. While this process, known as “gaming”, is against Digg’s terms of use, Hill says the site has been unable to catch any of his employees.
uSocial offers deals such as 200 Digg votes for $200.
Hill told The Times that he knew several of Digg’s users looked down upon gaming. “I know that a lot of people are angry with me. But people ranting have been good publicity for me, and I know that I am providing a valuable service for small business owners and a lot of companies out there – for them it is a godsend,” he said.
“I am not going to stop. As far as I know they have no legal grounds to make us stop.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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