Pay-per-Digg service exposed

A pay-for-votes service has been launched that allows publishers to promote their submissions on Digg.com.

User/Submitter touts itself as a site "where Digg submitters pay for Digg users to promote their stories, and where Digg users make easy money".

Digg is a social book-marking service where users can submit stories and vote for content that they like. Submissions that garner enough interest are promoted to the service's front page, which typically leads to a spike in traffic.

The User/Submitter site offers Digg users 10 cents for every 'digg' they issue to listed stories. The publishers of those stories are then charged a base fee of $20 plus $1 per Digg.

It is unclear whether the service offers a genuine product or is a hoax, however. In a test by vnunet.com, we were able to create an account and were presented with a list of stories on which we could vote.

But we were unable to verify whether those stories had recruited the services of User/Submitter or were just random links pulled from the Digg.com website.

User/Submitter did not respond to several requests for comment.