Former child actress Lindsay Lohan is defending her kid sister, reality TV actress Ali Lohan, against rumors that the youngster has had breast augmentation surgery. When someone posed the question, Linds ripped the bounder apart on her Myspace page. "It made me feel a bit sick to my stomach," she wrote. "My response simply was, 'Did you really just ask me that? She is a 14-year-old girl, and you are a pedophile!'" She then goes on to stand up for her mom.

News Corp.'s online arm, Fox Interactive Media, has struggled to attract online talent while paying them like a startup would. (News Corp. shares just don't cut it.) The solution for the unit, which includes MySpace and a passel of lesser-known websites: a long-term incentive plan, or LTIP, which offers a sort of phantom equity to executives in the division. In the last few weeks, the numbers for the most recent fiscal year which ended June 30 were distributed, and they were "disastrously low," says a tipster. "Most executives were already looking to leave," he says. "They hated FIM and the only reason they were staying was because of promises made about the LTIP." True, FIM hasn't quite made its aggressively optimistic numbers. But executives believe the real reason their bonuses are so low is MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe's fat contract.DeWolfe and his MySpace cohort, Tom Anderson, renewed their contracts last fall with News Corp. last year for $15 million apiece, spread over two years. Paying that amount has, FIM executives believe, left nothing for them. "They're pissed," says our tipster. Then again, do these puffed-up Fox executives deserve much more than they're getting? Pop quiz: Name a Fox Interactive property other than MySpace.

Most teenage girls on Facebook and MySpace would ignore messages from a guy calling himself "jadedwasted." That's the nom de Web of Warren Nanney, a guy whom Idaho cops are investigating for allegedly approaching young women for sex on social networks. On Facebook alone, Nanney had "over 500 contacts, 500 people listed as friends and 90 percent of them were under the age of 18," according to local police. Nanney was also allegedly cruising MyYearbook.com, a site the investigators say they'd never heard of before. (It's one of Barry Diller's favorites.)A+ to Facebook for brand recognition? But it wasn't the profiles or messages that took down Nanney — it was after one 17-year-old woman who did meet with Nanney called the cops, fearing for her safety. As much as law enforcement relies on the open surveillance they can engage in online, it's still the girls themselves who best know when to sic the cops on a creep.

Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post has delivered some extraordinary news about comedian and Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac, albeit at the end of a long post about an event from improv troupe Upright Citizens Brigade. It seems Cenac, who has an "I'll friend anyone" policy on MySpace and Facebook, learned through the social networking applications that he has "a family I never knew about." He explained at the improv event that, quite sensibly, he decided he didn't really believe the news after receiving a tip about his long-lost sister through one of his profiles. But now he's quite thoroughly convinced:

MySpace Music, the joint venture between the social network and three big record-label groups, is struggling to find a CEO, according to The Deal. There's a long list of prospects who have turned the News Corp.-owned social network down: Ian Rogers, the former head of Yahoo Music; Jim Bankoff, formerly of AOL; Eric Garland, the highly quotable head of file-sharing research firm BigChampagne; and former Launch CEO Dave Goldberg, who now works at Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence and is married to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, which makes the L.A. job geographically undesirable. But what's most amusing about MySpace's failed CEO search is the excuse MySpace is now giving for putting off a hire: The team is so close to delivering a product that hiring a boss now would just screw things up. Makes sense — but it raises the question, why hire a CEO at all?

Dane Cook doesn't like the poster for his new movie! And to be fair to the unfunny and petulant comedian, it is terrible. The average heterosexual male would decline to see this movie based solely on the poster, even without knowing Dane Cook was in it. But the average heterosexual male who found themselves living Dane Cook's life would probably let it slide, secure in the thought that despite being (probably) Tucker Max's favorite entertainer, he was starring in movies with Kate Hudson and had a stable of college groupies. Dane Cook, however, took to his MySpace page with a 10-point letter of complaint about how the poster makes him look. Dude, you're totally making yourself sound like a metrosexual:

Plasticly popular MySpace personality Tila Tequila and Courtenay Semel, the daughter of ex-Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, attended a premiere together last night in Los Angeles. There, the pair confirmed a more successful merger than Semel senior ever managed. “I’d seen the show [A Shot at Love] and just needed to meet her and it just happened,” Semel told People magazine. “It’s true what they say about lesbians," said Tequila. "You meet and then the next day you move in together, because I can’t get rid of her. She pretty much lives at my house.” We think this is the only Yahoo-MySpace deal we'll see happen. (Photo by AP/Steinberg)

Metrics firm ComScore reports that 132 million unique visitors logged onto Facebook in June 2008, up from just 52 million in June 2007. 117 million worldwide users visited MySpace during June 2008. Its Facebook's first definitive traffic victory, from a source advertisers actually pay attention to, over MySpace. Way down on the list at No. 6 — past the fast-growing Hi5, past still-kicking Friendster — there's AOL CEO Randy Falco's $850 million social network, Bebo, which saw 24 million visitors in June.

That's so not hot: Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of MySpace, is dating Paris Hilton, Michael Arrington reports. Or if not dating, they've at least been seen together a lot, from Hollywood to the Hamptons. We wonder: Is it a coincidence that Hilton has fallen into DeWolfe's circle? Only two months ago, we reported how MySpace's security holes had further exposed the starlet, by making her supposedly private photos on the social network public. DeWolfe is married, but separated; Hilton has another boyfriend. So perhaps this isn't so much dating as tech support.We kid, of course. What this really confirms is what we knew all along: DeWolfe is a wannabe Hollywood type; rather than a hit movie, he has a hit website. Or had. It's precisely when stars begin fading that they begin prime targets for the paparazzi. MySpace has seen better days. As has DeWolfe. That he's hanging out with the likes of Hilton tells us all we need to know about the future arc of his career. It reminds us, in fact, of the idea of Yahoo merging with MySpace. Yes, that once seemed hot, too.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported an odd and sort of complex story about "bundlers" raising money for John McCain. The gist: the biggest of these bundlers net GOP candidates huge donations from weirdos and losers who often have never even voted before. The almost-accusation: the bundlers are funneling their own cash to the candidates via third parties, which is illegal. Clinton donor Norman Hsu got in trouble for this. One small problem-the most unlikely of these donations went to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain. The Post's lede and photo implicated McCain. Correction time! "Those donors — Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and lounge owners Nadia and Shawn Abdalla — wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain." Oh, but here's the important part: Ana Marie Cox found Nadia and Shawn Abdalla's lounge's MySpace page (watch out for the [AWESOME] song!) and it's AWESOME. We're just going to reprint their entire "About Me" section after the jump, because it's great.

News Corp. reports earnings tomorrow — but no one's worrying about how many copies of The Simpsons Fox sold on Blu-ray. Wall Street's worries are centered on how ads are doing on MySpace. After months of denials, a Fox executive has conceded the obvious to the Wall Street Journal: Google's keyword-pegged ads are bombing on MySpace. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said as much in discussing his company's results, but MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe was quick to deny a problem at the time. With Fox Interactive's parent company, News Corp., reporting quarterly results tomorrow, we suspect the Fox source let the bad news leak early in an effort to mix a hint of optimism in the story. The result:Instead of a deeper look at why the Google-MySpace partnership is failing, the Journal produced an explainer on MySpace's nearly-year old "hyptertargeting" ad product — the one that, according to the Journal, enables MySpace to double the amount it charges advertisers by categorizing users "into more than 1,000 'buckets,' including rodeo watchers, scrapbook enthusiasts and Dancing With the Stars viewers." Concert organizer Live Nation and shoemaker Adidas bought some inventory and walked away pleased, the story tells us. One problem: like all behavioral targeting technology, "hypertargeting" faces increased scrutiny from Congressmen on a privacy kick. Another problem: targeted or no, many marketers don't believe MySpace users pay any attention to ads while they're cruising each other's profiles.

Skanky-chic clothing retailer American Apparel reached nearly 48.9 million unique Web surfers with 489 million display ad vews in the month of April according to ComScore, with 24 percent of those impressions being garnered on MySpace, 19 percent on Facebook, and another 12 percent on AOL's banner-laden AIM software client. The ads have stirred controversy for the prurient use of Helvetica. How's it affecting the bottom line?The company raked in $111 million last quarter, a 50 percent increase year over year — though the company's bookkeeping is notoriously unreliable, the share price is down to an all-time low, and a fifth sexual harassment suit is still pending against visionary pervert Dov Charney, founder and CEO. That explains why American Apparel is so happy to advertise on the social networks that frighten more staid brands: The rates are cheap, and the company doesn't have to worry about tarnishing its reputation.

After decades of cultivating poshness, eurotrashy jeweler Cartier has joined the modern age with a MySpace page! It doesn't have too many friends yet—3,800 or so—but it shouldn't be embarrassed. Being an "exclusive" brand means weeding out a lot of the hoi polloi. According to the Times, people, for example, "whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party" won't be approved. Good call. But for some reason this rigorous selection process has failed to weed out Good Charlotte, whose lead singer and guitarist are sleeping with Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, a significantly grubbier association than "guzzling" beer, no? Don't be put off from trying to join this elite club, though: It's full of fascinating people who leave messages about their mom wearing Paris de Cartier—which, frankly, is a far more powerful marketing tool than any glossy ad campaign or sponsored polo match in St. Moritz. Right?

MyYearbook, a social network for teens turned off by the old people thronging Facebook and MySpace, has raised an additional $13 million in venture capital. The social-network startup wooed by Barry Diller's IAC last year, but a deal never happened. The site claims to be the third biggest social network in the U.S.

Click to viewConventional wisdom has it that males on the Internet gravitate toward pictures of pretty women like hungry honeybees to a sugary tulip, and click, click, click. It's why Tila Tequila has 3,345,634 MySpace friends and Tania Derveaux has 108,907 YouTube subscribers. It's why, on social news site Digg, so many spammers pretend to be attractive women — to attract votes for their stories from Digg users incapable of holding onto their mouse finger when faced with a picture of a pretty woman. But does this method work? We decided to find out.

Little has been heard from Slingshot Labs, the startup "incubator" News Corp. formed in February, in the months since its creation. The $15 million fund for spinoff ventures did succeed in keeping MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe in place: We hear that he made it a quid pro quo before signing a new, lucrative contract with Rupert Murdoch. He's not the only MySpace employee Slingshot played a part in keeping down in Los Angeles. We hear Nick Granado, a top engineer behind MySpace's iPhone version, first flirted with a job at Facebook, then worked briefly at Imeem, before getting lured back with a gig at Slingshot.

Sometimes we don't know whether to thank VH1 for trying to "find true love" for washed up musicians or to strangle them for forcing us through yet another round of Bret Michaels: Rock Of Love (working title: Rock Of Love: Really, I'll Do Anyone At This Point). Yes, that sad series partially responsible for rendering all glass ceilings unbreakable is back and, this time, well, no, he's probably still not serious. Why so cynical? Well, his last "winner," 99-year old Chicago anchor chick Ambre Lake, lasted just under a day. But she did get the chance to really pimp her MySpace profile with dirty pics, exclamation mark-happy updates on Bret's CW appearances (!!!), and a heartfelt blog entry promising the "3rd time will be a charm!!!" Yes, spelling-challenged Ambre, we bet it will. You know, because this time, all the barely clothed contestants will be forced to live in...wait for it...the same tightly confined tour bus! If you don't smell love in the air, you've been dipping in to too many of these "ladies"' stashes:

TubeMogul, a startup which allows content creators to post video clips to multiple sites at once and track aggregate views for the clip across sites, did a survey of over 200,000 clips and how much traffic they garnered after 90 days. The results? The average clip got more views on YouTube in three months (3,092) than on the next eight video sites combined (2,092). [NewTeeVee]

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who says shareholders shouldn't give corporate raider Carl Icahn control of the company because he has no plan other than to sell to Microsoft, got a boost from an unexpected supporter: News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch told reporters at Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley retreat that "in six months, (Microsoft) will walk away." The crusty mogul added: "There won't be a deal. There's bad personal feelings."

There's desperate — and then there's "paying $15 billion for second-place has-been social network MySpace" desperate. Not even Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, under pressure from a mixed-up Microsoft, angry shareholders, and crazy-old-coot corporate raider Carl Icahn to do some kind of deal, is that desperate. Yang is taking so much heat for blowing merger negotiations with Microsoft, botching the company's reorg, and losing top talent that he's probably going to lose his job come August 1, when the company holds an annual shareholder meeting. But despite all that, a source close to the company told Reuters that Yang refused a bailout deal with News Corp. that would have combined Yahoo with MySpace because "News Corp. sought a value of as much as $15 billion for those assets." At long last, we're happy to credit Yang for a smart move!