In the Digg TOS there is this one section on user conduct:
As a condition of use, you promise not to use the Services for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms of Use, or any other purpose not reasonably intended by Digg.
By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree not to use the Services:
1. to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Digg users;
2. to contribute any Content that is infringing, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, offensive or otherwise violates any law or right of any third party;
3. for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. If you are an international user, you agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content;
4. to post or transmit, or cause to be posted or transmitted, any communication or solicitation designed or intended to obtain password, account, or private information from any Digg user;
5. to create or submit unwanted email ("Spam") to any other Digg users or any URL;
6. to violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright laws);
7. to submit stories or comments linking to affiliate programs, multi-level marketing schemes, sites/blogs repurposing existing stories (source hops), or off-topic content;
8. with the exception of accessing RSS feeds, you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission. Additionally, you agree that you will not: (i) take any action that imposes, or may impose in our sole discretion an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (ii) interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site or any activities conducted on the Site; or (iii) bypass any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Site;
9. with the intention of artificially inflating or altering the 'digg count', blog count, comments, or any other Digg service, including by way of creating separate user accounts for the purpose of artificially altering Digg's services; giving or receiving money or other remuneration in exchange for votes; or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg's services.
Digg may remove any Content and Digg accounts at any time for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such Content), or for no reason at all. To report Terms of Use abuse, please email: [email protected]
The only line that involves spaming is in regards to emailing members. There is the catch-all line at the very end that essentially says, "we can do whatever we want for any reason," but there is no explicit policy in regards to paying a Digg user to submit a particular story.
Let's take a moment and consider the double standard at work here:
Digg is a for profit web site that is built on user generated content. Without the users Digg has no audience and no profits. Up and until a few days ago Digg 'rewarded' users by having a top diggers list. Now Digg has removed that one reward system because they felt the existence of the list led to gaming of the Digg home page.
Kevin Rose and company keep denying that it is the top diggers who are gaming the home page yet, they chose to remove the top diggers list rather than the far more 'gaming friendly' friends feature!
Digg has become the site it is because of the many diggers who spend the time getting good content onto Digg. If Digg is not going to compensate them for that why should they not be allowed to gain an income from other sources?
How would Digg handle the account of a member who works at a PR firm? Let's say that they use their account 99% for regular digging but, once in a while, they submit something for work. Because they submitted it 'for work' they have gotten paid. Will this result in their account being banned?
There are far better ways for Digg to stop the gaming of its home page:
1) Dump the friends feature - As nice as it is to be able to find out what your friends are digging and submitting this feature makes it far to easy to game Digg. At the very least, remove the ability to digg a story from the friends area.
2) Force users to follow the link to the story before being able to digg it - This might take a bit more work on the part of the coders at digg but it would probably be the best method to combat Digg fraud. Forcing people to open up the story and look at it will negate the diggers who digg something because it has a snappy title or want to bookmark it to read later.
3) Add a new kind of digg called a 'bookmark' - This new style of Digg would allow a user to bookmark the story for later reading and digging. This 'zero weight' digg would allow those who do not have the time to read a story now to mark it for later reading without inflating it's digg count.
That's all I have for now