(Question) Who has actually read the Digg Terms of Use?

For the first time ever I spent more than an hour playing around on Digg, trying to get a handle on how the system works. It is remarkable the process each submission goes through before it can even be seen by the majority of the Digg audience.

Like many users, I signed up for the site as quick as humanly possible. I moved from one form field to the next, clicking every agreement in site without even once reading much into it.

For one reason or another, I went all the way down to the bottom of the Digg homepage and actually clicked on the Terms of Use link. In it I found a couple of intriguing things:

1.) Digg can kick just about any user off the site if it so desires

"Digg may terminate or suspend any and all Services and your Digg account immediately, without prior notice or liability, if you breach any of the terms or conditions of the Terms of Use."

Fair enough, but read elsewhere in the Terms of Use and it says:

"By uploading, submitting or otherwise disclosing or distributing Content for display or inclusion on the Site, you represent and warrant that you own all rights..."

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the site? Isn't just about every submission a link to someone else's work? I submitted a YouTube video today that I didn't own the rights to - if Digg wanted, they could ban me from the site for it. Nice to know.

2.) Digg can Modfy the Terms of Service Whenever it would like.

"Digg reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace the Terms of Use at any time."

Digg exists as a corporation, first and foremost to create value for it's shareholders. Of course if anyone is too disruptive, and could possibly lower the value, the terms of use can be changed to prevent that action from happening again.

But again, it's already written to support Diggs termination of any user. I doubt they'll change the terms to be more favorable to the users.

What is the point of this? I simply think that a corporation crowd-sourcing it's information should be more receptive to the public having a say in what its terms of use are. Perhaps Digg could have a wiki-style terms of service where the users vote (they are digg afterall) on what sort of people they want on the site.

I'll keep using Digg for the time being, but the second a user-owned site becomes available, you better bet that I'll move there.