You can deny it all you like, but if you have internet access and have yet to visit the Big Brother website you are either lying or are working for one of those Brotheresque companies that monitor their workers' every online move. Proving the point, last Friday, one million of us - a large number via the site - voted who should be the next contestant to pack their bags. The Sun seems to have caught the bug too. Has it got someone watching for developments (read sex) 24 hours a day? Whatever the methods, it managed to publish a picture of evictee Andrew and bookies' favourite Mel kissing before the "event" had even been screened on TV.
A couple of days later news of the Sun's stunt to airdrop "Kick out Nick" leaflets on the contestants' house was quickly countered on the site by a statement saying that the show's producers had prevented any leaflets reaching the intended eyes. Relieved fans immediately flocked to the show's <A HREF="http://forumuniverse.com/ bigbrotheruk"TARGET="_NEW">dedicated newsgroups. "Alan" summed up the mood: "It is nothing but a cheap stunt on the Sun's part that could really ruin the game for all us BB fanatics. Half the fun of the game is watching Nick's antics and how the other housemates deal with him."
Another popular site - endorsed by Tony Blair no less - was in the news, this time for all the wrong reasons. TheSite.org, a teenage advice site, was booted off an online directory called just35.com for being too "vulgar". The charity-run site attracts 65,000 young viewers a month but click on the "sex" section and you are presented with articles such as "G-spotting: What is it, how does it work, and where's the switch?" and "Penis extenders - the truth - but do they really work?". Well, it was all too much for just35.com's managing director, Roger Frenton: "I wouldn't want any children visiting the site." Even the <A HREF=" http://www.number-10.gov.uk"TARGET="_NEW">Downing Street spin machine was activated: "Websites are organic and change We have no idea what it looks like now."
Landlords are not going to win any new friends with the launch of a website this week that aims to "name and shame" dodgy tenants. Registered under the Data Protection Act, it allows landlords to alert their like about the "hundreds of thousands" of people who owe rent or steal from their property. The site was set up by Paul Routledge, a landlord who co-owns, count them, 160 properties across England - an investment that nets his company up to £100,000 each month. Tenants, it appears, are not held in high regard by Routledge: "I had to do something about it. It's like the News of the World printing the names of paedophiles. OK, so some paedophiles might have suffered but someone has to start it off."
