Trouble at the ODP

The Open Directory Project is the largest human edited directory of web sites and documents existing online at this time. While many search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN maintain larger databases of electronically spidered sites, the volunteer editors at the ODP read, sort and classify all submitted content before it is added to their search-database. Started in 1998 in reaction to difficulties webmasters had getting their content into Yahoo's then human edited directory, the GNU Project . It was even originally named after the GNU project, launched as GnuHoo. The name was quickly changed to NewHoo in order to avoid confusion between the two projects. Over time, the NewHoo morphed into the more organized Open Directory Project. The ODP is owned and operated by AOL's Netscape division which has pledged to keep the directory 100% free as part of Netscape's Corrupt DMOZ Editor which was started in December 2004 by DMOZ editor Ana Thema, the blog lists several entries detailing systemic corruption throughout the Open Directory editorial structure. In her February 8 posting, Ana states, "Links are a commodity. Links from DMOZ are a hot commodity . Everything in this world is a commodity: everything. If you disbelieve that someone would be so corrupt as to sell submissions into the ODP, then Dorothy, this is your wake up call." In other posts she claims she uses at least a dozen unique editor names and maintains a network with dozens of other ODP editors. Reading Ana Thema's blog is much like watching one's first episode of the corrupt-cop drama,