If you spend far too much of your time online like the other 98% of us, then you'll have become used to the creepy ads that seem to follow you from website to website suggesting the same ugly pair of shoes you accidentally clicked on earlier in the day.

The practice of showing you that same ad again and again is called 'retargeting' by online ad geeks and attempts to turn online window shoppers into buyers as the day goes on. Presumably it works, but it's never tempted me to revisit a product, in fact it just reminds me to avoid that website in future.

There are all kinds of other targeted ads too, which use the information that Google has created about you to show you the things that advertisers think you might be interested in. Although, considering Google thought I was 20 years older than I am and a different gender, those ads probably don't always have great conversion rates.

Although they may seem like part of your online browsing experience now, it seems internet users could soon have the power to turn off any targeted advertising that they find creepy/irritating/intrusive. According to The Telegraph, a new screen icon introduced by the European Advertising Standards Alliance and the internet Advertising Bureau of Europe could soon be added to websites, which allows people to choose the advertising that's pitched to them in future and even turn it off completely.

Guy Parker, the ASA chief executive, told The Telegraph:

"Members of the public will become more aware of Online Behavioural Advertising and will be able to exercise their choice not to receive it.

"All the experience shows that when companies take the time and trouble to explain to consumers what they are doing, consumers understand it [...] People end up providing a more accurate profile of themselves."

Some websites, like Yahoo!, are already using the icon voluntarily, but as of June this year it'll be required by all ad networks and could change the way we browse the internet for the better.

[Image via Elvert Barnes]

Back in 2009 founders of the now infamous BitTorrent search engine, The Pirate Bay, were
convicted of being accessories to copyright violations and issued with hefty fines and potential prison sentences. Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Carl Lundström and Gottfrid Svartholm went on to file for a Supreme Court appeal in Sweden in an attempt to lessen the charges. However, according to The Local the appeal has been denied, meaning the sentences they were given a few years ago could still stand, including between four and ten months in prison, as well as fines of well over $6 million.

Henrik Pontén, part of the legal counsel for Sweden's Anti-Piracy Bureau explained in a statement to the press:

"A society ruled by law has now had its say and this is a breaking point in a drawn out discussion about copyright on the internet. The highest court has made it clear that anyone who takes any part in these crimes, even those who supply the internet connection, will have to face up to their responsibility,"

Today The Next Web cited a snippet from Peter Sunde's blog, Copy Me Happy, about the news:

"Even though the outcome (which we still haven't reached) is not favorable for my personal situation, the end goal that we fight for is so much more important than some peoples personal struggles. I'll live with not being rich - which is easy when you're not rich anyhow - the rest of my life.

"I'll live with whatever sentence I'll get in the end - I'll just finish my book. The fight goes on with or without me, I'm just a pawn. But at least I'm a pawn on the morally right side. I'm proud as hell of what I've done and I would not change my involvement in any way. I actually think I could have done much more for the fight. And I will."

[Via The Next Web Image via Myki Roventine]

We've seen many a meme become an online phenomenon since the birth of Shiny Shiny, but never have we seen one that's become so popular so quickly that even our parents have seen (WTF) until now. The s%!t my ___ says videos have truly taken on a life of their own over the past few months, just have a quick YouTube search and you'll find enough to waste away this boring morning.

Yes, some are stupid and irritating and maybe a bit offensive, but some are just LOL hilarious, so we don't want them to stop anytime soon. So we were very happy to see that our lazy little minds don't even have to go looking for these gems of online comedy gold anymore, as Buzzfeed has collected them all in one place. How thoughtful.

The website is called hasanyonesaidthisshit.com and you can enter any word and it'll bring up a tonne of suggestions. Click the one that puts a smile on your face and watch it all the way through without having to even leave the site. You're welcome.

[Via The Next Web]

Popular video sharing community Vimeo announced plans for a new redesign yesterday, which will not only put more focus on the all-important video content, giving users a player that's two times the size of the original, but will also see improved navigation options and a range of new discovering and social sharing features too.

Although there are all kinds of tweaks being made and new features added (you can find out more about them at http://vimeo.com/new), the biggest changes are detailed on the Vimeo blog:

A brand new video page with bigger, faster, better looking videos.

Better browsing capabilities and more ways to discover the things you like.

Your "Inbox" has now become your "Feed".

You can follow other users to keep up with what they're doing and their content.

Uploading has been improved so you can upload multiple files quickly and easily.

Increased privacy control.

More advanced search options so you get better results.

And much more...

However, the Vimeo team is also keen to point out the site hasn't just had a fancy new lick of paint, the new site has been rebuilt from the ground up, meaning better optimised site performance and faster browsing.

Dae Mellencamp, Vimeo's CEO, said:

"Vimeo's growth [approx. 65M Monthly uniques in Dec. 2011] and dedication to maximising the user experience was the catalyst for this redesign.

"The result protects the essence of Vimeo while allowing for future growth of audience and features in a simple, intuitive environment."

This week Vimeo will be allowing some users to sign-up for closed testing of the new design and then just a few weeks down the line it'll hopefully be rolled out to everyone.

Check out the ad about the new redesign at http://vimeo.com/35514005 or try it out for yourself as the changes are rolled out at http://vimeo.com/new. Be sure to check back at Shiny Shiny in a few weeks for our review of the design and thoughts about Vimeo's future...

I'm sure most of us have been in a relationship that's come to an end and have had to make the painful (yet sometimes liberating) decision to throw away those old teddy bears, cards and other cutesy keepsakes. But what if you were planning on getting married and have much more big and expensive items to get rid of? Surely you can't put that designer wedding dress in the wheely bin outside?

There are obviously ways you can get rid of your old stuff, but now a new website has been launched, dubbed "eBay for the broken-hearted", that's been specially created to allow people to sell their old keepsakes, as well as share their sob stories with the whole world at the same time. As if they're not going through enough already...

NeverLikedItAnyway.com is much like eBay, users simply upload an image of the item they're looking to sell, write up a description and then give it a "break-up price" (which is much lower than what it would be worth in the real world). They're then invited to explain why they're selling it so that sneaky buyers looking for a bargain can snap up these reduced items and prey on the melancholy of others. Ah lovely.

After having a quick browse of the site there are mainly engagement rings, other pieces of jewellery and wedding dresses available and you may be surprised to hear it's not just angry women who are flogging their old stuff, there are a few men on there too.

It all sounds like a bit of a joke, but it's a good way for people to get rid of unwanted items and painful memories quickly while still making some of their money back. Just don't go onto the site expecting to laugh at the misfortune of others, some of the stories are actually really sad...

[Via The Telegraph]

Clever recommendation website and quirky little mind map tool Jinni has changed the way we discover new films and TV shows, so imagine how excited we were to find there's a similar kinda service to help you pair up the right kinds of food.

Foodpairing is an interactive web application specially designed to allow you to explore new flavours and ways of mixing different foods together. So, if for example you've got a watermelon and have no idea which meat you should be pairing it with, Foodpairing will figure that out for you and give you lots of different suggestions about complementary ingredients all within a shiny, interactive mind map.

Although it's fun for food-lovers who just like throwing ingredients together and eating a lot, it is mainly targeted towards those working with food day in and day out. You can sign up for a free account and play around with up to 100 foodpairing combinations, or get a paid account for $15/month for access to everything.

[Via Lifehacker]

All of our favourite websites and communities seem to want to shout about their achievements at the moment (we're looking at you Tumblr), and with impressive statistics and lots of new ideas in the pipeline we see no problem with that at all.

The latest set of "oh wow" stats comes from YouTube, as Google has released figures today revealing that more than one hour of video content is uploaded to the popular (and highly addictive) community every single second. Oh my. So that's a huge 60 hours per minute, a tenfold increase on the amount of video we were all uploading back in 2007, and crazily a whole decade each and every day - no wonder the team have a hard time moderating every single video!

Not only that, but the videos on the site get more than four billion views per day, which is around half of the population of the whole planet. It's heart-warming to know that everyone can be brightened up by a cat video or watch a little girl perform a Nicki Minaj song regardless of their location, isn't it?!

To visualise just how much video gets uploaded onto the site, YouTube has created a fun little animation over at onehourpersecond.com that we recommend checking out in your lunch break.

We've said it 3,382 times over the past few weeks and we're going to say it again, content curation website Pinterest has suddenly become kind of a big deal. Everyone's pinning, collecting and re-pinning all kinds of photos and we're happy to see one of our favourite communities grow at a really rapid pace.

However, if Pinterest just isn't your thing because it's a little too 'girly', the interface doesn't appeal to you, or maybe you just don't want to follow the crowd, then there are plenty of alternatives out there that allow you to curate content and keep it in a safe place.

Today at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich, the founder and CEO of popular micro-blogging platform Tumblr, David Karp, revealed that the site and its many, many blogs attract more than 15 billion pageviews every month.

Although that statistic is huge, it comes as no surprise given that there are (as of right now), 16,343,419,993 Tumblog posts being published, tweaked re-blogged and read by the site's dedicated community.

At the conference Karp also went on to discuss some of the key features of the platform, and why he thinks it's become so popular in recent years, standing by the decision to not introduce standard features, like commenting and tagging. According to SocialBeat, Karp explained, "commenting makes YouTube a horrible place". Although some of the more unusual choices may put some users off, it could well be Tumblr's rather unconventional attitude to blogging that's made it such a hit.

You can view Tumblr's Quantcast page for a more detailed breakdown of the stats.

[Via SocialBeat]

Virtual pinboard community Pinterest has really taken off over the past few weeks. If you haven't heard of it, been sent an invite or seen 473,589,476 updates about it on Twitter, then it's a visual inspiration and curation website where you can "pin" content to virtual boards. Yes, there are similar concepts out there, but something about it just makes it really easy-to-use and simple to manage.

As more and more users sign up to Pinterest, many are beginning to question what it's really for and how the majority of the community are using it. The general consensus is that it's more popular among women, meaning an abundance of crafty, cute and kitten-related photos. Although we'd argue that it can be used for much more than that, this stereotype means that a new content curation tool has emerged to give men a much more masculine alternative, called Gentlemint. Yes, really.

On a basic level Gentlemint is very much like Pinterest, you post content, add comments, like other people's images and can share everything to Facebook and Twitter too. However, the key difference is the content you're encouraged to share, which is all stereotypically very manly.

There isn't a check on your gender when you sign up (that'd be a huge pain to enforce), but the front page is full of (supposedly) manly things, like cars, fighting and lots of moustaches.

It's not like anything seen to be overtly 'girly' is banned, but the creators want you to share certain kinds of content. One of the site's co-founder's Glen Stansberry told Mashable:

"It really has less to do with being a male or female, or kittens or bacon, and more to do with encouraging users to add stuff around that theme."

We wonder whether encouraging users to behave in a certain way will lead to a dedicated and active community or whether it'll just make them really frustrated?

But here's a newsflash, guys can use Pinterest too you know. We checked. It doesn't have to have a moustache on it to make it manly. We're not sure whether we're taking this too seriously and should just see it as a fun site, because in many ways it really is. But many are now saying Pinterest is for girls and Gentlemint is for guys and that seems a bit too much doesn't it? Doesn't it?

At the moment the community just exists online at Gentlemint.com, but according to Mashable, iOS and Android apps are on the cards for the future. If you fancy signing up and adding all of your favourite masculine snaps, then you do have to request an invite, but they seem to be arriving in inboxes pretty quickly.

[Via Mashable]

We've all heard of the bright, irritating and highly addictive bird hurling game Angry Birds, but how about trying your hand at Angry Brides instead...

Don't worry, you don't have to hurl worried wedding guests at shaky structures, but you can hit a range of well-dressed, rather smug-looking men with flip flops, stilettos and other household items. What's not to love?!

However, the game hasn't been built for man-hating independent women, an online matchmaking portal in India called shaadi.com has launched Angry Brides to raise awareness of illegal dowry in the country.

To play the game you must hit the three grooms that are all demanding dowries from you (1.5 million rupees to be exact), and each time you hit one of them you win money towards your own virtual anti-dowry fund. Although it's clearly just a bit of fun, it's an interesting move from shaadi.com to highlight the illegal (and unfortunately fairly widespread) practice of demanding a dowry.

The game is currently available as a free Facebook application and has 272,000 likes and counting...

[Via Geekonomics Via ST]

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Today a number of websites both big and small have decided to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the US.

The most popular sites that have gone dark today include Wikipedia, Boing Boing, Wordpress and Reddit (which will go down in 2 hours). And, a number of other sites are still active but feature links to more information about the acts, most notably everyone's favourite search engine Google.

So many individuals and online businesses all over the world have been up in arms about SOPA because if it's enacted any copyright holder could legally have websites shut down by accusing them of violating their copyright. This means even a huge website could completely disappear if just one page is accused of copyright infringement. Scary stuff. There are also other implications if the acts are passed, for instance, ISPs would have the power to monitor traffic and block websites that are even suspected of any kind of copyright infringement.

There's no denying that there are many issues regarding copyright laws online, but passing such an extreme law in the states that could so greatly affect our online freedom and the way we use the internet all over the globe is a very scary prospect.

Check out the SOPA Strike website for more information and details about how you can shut your site for the day and watch the video above for a more detailed explanation about SOPA and PIPA.

Over the next few days the quick, fun and easy blogging service Tumblr will be rolling out a new private messaging system to its users called Fan Mail, according to the platform's official staff blog.

The new system will allow users to send private messages to other Tumblr bloggers (or Tumbloggers, we're never sure), which they can then retrieve from the top corner of followed blogs, in avatar menus and within their Tumblr inbox.

Users have always been able to 'ask' other users things, but these messages were sent via a public email address and often just prompted questions and small snippets rather than longer messages.

It seems the messages may also have customisable formats too and look like quirky handwritten notes, which is a nice touch.

Some users have received a message from Tumblr's CEO David Karp about the new system already, which reads:

"I'm very pleased to introduce Fan Mail, a beautiful new way to share those sweet, inspiring, or otherwise thoughtful notes with your favorite bloggers. Enjoy!"

It seems like a positive and necessary step from Tumblr to introduce a new messaging system that allows bloggers to interact with each other privately and directly. Not only will it increase engagement among different users, but it makes Tumblr seem like even more of a community and less of a blogging platform. However, we're not sure every private message shared will be "sweet" and "inspiring" like Karp suggests. We presume in the future there'll need to be strict ways for Tumblr to police spam or abusive messages, which aren't nice but unfortunately are commonplace online, even in the jolly little world of Tumblr.

There are plenty of apps, services and websites dedicated to helping you make notes, write lists and share snippets of content. However, the thing we love most about services like Pinterest, ffffound and We Heart It (and we do love them) is that they're focused on visual content, whether that be an illustration, photo or diagram. Maybe we're just all visual learners or something here at Shiny Shiny, but keeping a photo with a note attached to it just seems to make more sense than a lengthy chunk of text.

GetVega is a little different, because it seems more serious and organised than the likes of Pinterest, but it still scores well with the visual lovers because you can make lists with photos and images. You simply create a list, which you can make public or private, then set about adding links to those lists. If you link to a blog post with a photo in it the photo will pop up along with the text, which you can then amend accordingly. You can also add images manually too and the thing that makes it a winner in our eyes is you can add a "magic grabber" to your browser so you can easily save photos you come across to a list, which will make you so much more likely to use it in the long run.

Just like Pinterest you can be the sole contributor, or you can add others too, which makes it great for collaboration with friends and even in the future businesses who sell items and depend heavily on lovely imagery.

Who's going to love GetVega?

People who like to keep things organised and neat but love big beautiful images. If you found Pinterest a bit too crafty give this a go and if you've never signed up for a curation and visual inspiration tool then get one now, it should be one of your social media resolutions after all!

[Via The Next Web]

As it's the beginning of January you can guarantee that everyone is thinking about, talking about and trying to stick to their resolutions for the new year. So, over the next few days we'll be looking into gadgets, apps and online services that help you stick to those resolutions, you just need the will power to actually make them work in the long run, because there's unfortunately not really an app for that...

Although you can guarantee eating healthily and getting fit are a few of the top resolutions, a big one in the Shiny Media office is to stop procrastinating online, whether you find yourself reading too many blogs, stalking Facebook photos, being brainwashed by celebrity gossip stories or aimlessly scrolling through tweets, just think about how much time you'd have spare to do actual work if you could really reign in your online browsing.

Well luckily a few developers have realised just how much we procrastinate on the web and there are a number of solutions to limit your time on certain websites, warn you when you go somewhere you shouldn't or even block certain sites altogether.

StayFocusd

StayFocusd is an extension for Google Chrome, which aims to limit your time on certain websites.

You add a list of blocked sites and then specify how much time you can spend on them throughout the day. You can then only browse for that amount of time on all of the sites combined before the extension blocks your access.

If you're worried you'll log in and just change the settings or amend the time then there's a 'Require Challenge' that you can enable, which means if you try to change anything you have to complete a challenge first, which will presumably put a lot of people off and kick them back into gear.

You can specify the days and times the restrictions will be in place and there's also a 'Nuclear Option' which completely restricts your access to a list of block sites for a certain period of time.

As StayFocusd only works with Google Chrome you can obviously open a new browser and stalk, tweet and procrastinate away your day, but maybe as you open up a new browser you hate you'd realise just how silly you're being. Hopefully.

Tea and Kittens

Tea and Kittens is a very simple extension for Firefox, Chrome and Safari which completely blocks your access to the Daily Mail and Daily Express websites.

Not all of us will openly admit it, but the Daily Mail's over-the-top celebrity gossip stories can be pretty addictive. On certain days it gets so bad that we can reel off the names of the celebrities that have recently split up, had surgery or worn a tight dress but yet can't name one thing we've done in the past hour. How sad.

If you download Tea and Kittens your access to the Daily Mail will be completely blocked and replaced with pictures of (you guessed it) tea and kittens, to calm you down and keep you away from distracting, sensationalist and mind dumbing celebrity gossip.

Nanny

Another Google Chrome extension, which is really comprehensive and allows you to block sites, block groups of sites and even track your time.

You can block websites at certain times of the day, which is useful if you want some time to let your mind wander over lunch time but then ensure you're productive for the rest of the day.

You can also block big sets of websites too, so you can create lists based on which are the most disruptive to your day.

If you're a sucker for a particular topic or person, let's say kittens, then you can also block websites that contain lots of "kitten" mentions too.

The extension also has a statistics page and it allows you to track how much time you spend on certain sites, which could be a bit of an eye-opener and possibly more useful in the long run than just blocking everything.

LeechBlock

LeechBlock is an add-on for Firefox and although it isn't particularly pretty, it's very popular and does the job, allowing you to specify when you want to block time wasting websites.

It's a good choice for Firefox lovers who need a simple solution and have the will power to leave the settings alone as all you require is a password to change them.

Following the over-hyped and controversial release of the .xxx domain extension earlier in the year, many brands, businesses and individuals are now actively using their x-rated new domain names.

According to popular domain registrar 123-reg, 70% of all those who pre-registered for an .xxx extension a few months ago were successful in getting the domain name they wanted.

Obviously many of these sites are dedicated to adult entertainment, from video hubs to live chats, but what's really interesting is that 48% weren't from those in the porn industry at all, but regular businesses hoping to protecting their brand and reputation.

NATAS, or the National Asbestos Training and Accreditation Scheme, which specialises in training and testing, decided to take steps to safeguard its business, registering www.natas.xxx.

Max Lopacki, the MD of NATAS, said:

"A few years ago, I owned and purchased the domain www.natas.com, but the registrar I used at the time didn't alert me to the re-registration of the domain and it expired. It was then bought by a business in the adult industry and as a result a large percentage of my customers and prospects were routed to a very graphic and not protected adult site.

"Most business people might not see the clear correlation between the release of an 'adult-specific' domain extension and the potential brand threat, but unfortunately at NATAS we recognise the importance of safeguarding our brand wherever possible."

So if you come across starbucks.xxx, don't think the brand is venturing into some kind of fetish sex site that mixes porn and coffee (ouch), instead we're likely to see more and more brands registering domain names to protect themselves against 'brandjacking'. After all, the last thing a big brand needs is for someone to sit on its domain name with a .xxx suffix and start publishing hard core pornography.

Back in September businesses could claim their .xxx domain names in order to start their own adult entertainment empire, or just protect against future brandjacking incidents.

Well today anyone can get their own .xxx domain name, regardless of whether you're representing a huge porn empire, just a guy with a camera looking to make a name for himself in the world of adult entertainment or someone who wants .xxx after their name just for a laugh. Although if you're not intending to show dodgy content, it might be worth saving your pennies as these sites will be scanned in a certain way, restricted by some providers and won't be as prevalent in search results in the future.

Stuart Lawley, the CEO of ICM Registry (stewards of the top-level .xxx domain), said:

"Availability of .xxx domain names is on a first come, first served basis [...] The new .xxx domain functions as a responsible alternative for sites that offer adult entertainment content and related services. All .xxx sites are appropriately labeled and McAfee Malware scanned. This means Internet users have a clear indication in advance of a site's content and can surf the Internet with more confidence."

Somewhere in the region of 100,000 .xxx domains are going live on Tuesday.

The ICM Registry campaigned for many years to get the green-light for .xxx domains before getting approval earlier this year. However, it's no surprise that big players in the porn industry have been sceptical about the introduction of the new suffix, fearing that it could isolate their position on the web.

According to a recent study, more than half of parents in English speaking countries log into their kids' social media accounts while they're out, but is this kind of behaviour necessary, normal or a little too sneaky?

Last week, security software company AVG released a new study called "Digital Diaries", which aims to provide an in-depth peek at the way different age groups across ten countries use technology, to gauge whether our dependence on gadgets and social media has a big impact on childhood. Among the research, AVG found that 58% of parents surveyed admitted to logging into their kids' social media accounts when they were out or away from their computers.

Many would suggest that parents should trust their children enough to leave them to it and any kind of snooping may lead to kids being even more secretive and unwilling to talk about their online behaviour in the future. However, the study also found that 43% of children aged as young as 10 are using Facebook and / or Twitter in the UK, which turns the tables a little and is even against Facebook's policy of only allowing kids aged 13 and above to have a profile on the social network.

Although children should be trusted to surf the internet on their own, the truth is that however savvy they may seem, there could be all kinds of things they're not familiar with, so they could unknowingly engage in conversations with strangers or accidentally click on links to download spyware.

The logical answer (and Facebook's attitude too), seems to be to create an open, trusting dialogue between parents and children when it comes to online activity. However, with the study also finding that 72% of parents think they knew best when it comes to online activity, it may be that conversation is a little one-sided and possibly behind the times.

AVG's CEO, JR Smith, said:

"Children are online at such an early age that many have developed the technical maturity of adults by their tween years. However, they have not developed the equivalent intellectual or emotional maturity necessary to make the right decisions in the many complex situations they face online.

"It's important that parents understand the role technology plays in their children's lives. It can help their kids be as smart and safe as possible with technology, while giving parents complete peace of mind."

[Image via Tim & Selena Middleton]

As Christmas is now less than five weeks away (insert shocked and panicked "the year has flown by" statement here), we've been talking to lots of our friends and colleagues about what they plan to do over the festive break and many said "stay away from Facebook" or "turn my laptop off" in a rather agressive tone.

It seems that as much as we often love and depend on the internet, sometimes we're just plain sick of it and with lots of family gatherings, travelling, eating and drinking to be done, Christmas seems like the perfect time to switch off.

We've compiled a list of things that we see (and admittedly do) far too often. So if you answer yes to five or more of these (we scored at least eight), then it shows that you and the internet need a bit of time apart.

1. When you meet people in the real world (I know, weird, huh?) you call them by their Twitter handle as apposed to their actual name.

2. You must read at least all of the headlines (and probably all of the articles) in the Daily Mail's 'sidebar of doom' before you can even think about starting any work.

3. Hitting "Mark all as read" in Google Reader when you've actually read nothing makes you feel very rebellious.

4. You spend more than a minute thinking of a way to make that next tweet even wittier.

5. Without even thinking you click on every link that says something along the lines of NSFW pictures / Jessica Biel naked.

6. You write agressive blog posts about how other people should / shouldn't be using Twitter / Facebook / Linkedin.

7. You write job lists upon job lists and store them across Word, two different apps and write them all down too.

8. You check who's unfollowed you on Twitter more than once a day.

9. You change your avatar as soon as you get a new hairstyle / hair colour / just a new top.

10. You've Googled / YouTubed Justin Bieber, just to see what all the fuss is about.

11. The only thing that makes you enthusiastic about life again is a cat video marathon.

12. You realise that you don't even remember what you just took a photo of because you've added that many filters, borders, blurs and light effects to it.

13. You know exactly how many Twitter / Facebook friends you have at any given time.

14. You check Twitter / Facebook / emails / general online news at least once during a good film at the cinema / important date / meeting with old friends.

15. You bid on things on eBay just because they're super cheap, not because you need them / want them / like them.

16. You realise your Facebook profile / timeline details everything you've done over the past fortnight, from the events you attended to the stupid thoughts you've had.

17. You've a actually said 'lol', 'OMG' or 'lmao' at some point in real life.

18. You own Twitter / Facebook related merchandise.

19. Checking-in on Foursquare at the pub is more of a priority to you than saying hello to the group of friends you're meeting or even ordering a drink.

20. You spend more than five minutes staring at a hex colour chart in an attempt to really find out which shade suits your personality.

21. You play on Farmville.

22. You play on Second Life.

23. Culling your Facebook / Twitter / Foursquare friends makes you feel really refreshed.

24. Stupid comments from trolls / annoying people on Twitter cause you to swear angrily at your computer and hit things.

25. You've watched 3,384,283 how-to beauty and hairstyle videos on YouTube yet you're sat in your pyjamas and have nowhere to go.

If you really want to, it's very easy to lie on the internet. Whether you cheekily knock a year or two off your age or set up lots of fake online personas of Catfish proportions.

Well, according to Digital Trends, those that tell even a tiny white lie online could soon be committing an actual crime.

The US Department of Justice may soon make it a federal crime to violate the "terms of service" of any website. As Digital Trends points out, this could be anything from using a fake name on Facebook to lying about your weight on a dating site.

A leaked document reveals that Richard Downing, the Department of Justice's deputy computer crime chief, may well be delivering a statement to Congress today detailing some of these new plans. However, it seems that the aim isn't to send everyone to prison for lying about the tiniest of details, but instead the act of prosecuting people for violating terms of service will serve as a way to deter more serious crimes, like identity theft and invasion of privacy.

There will obviously be many people arguing against this rather broad and extreme rehashing of the law. After all, it'd be farcical to see someone prosecuted for gaining a few pounds and not updating their Match.com profile or using Google if they're under 18, actions which are forbidden in the terms of service for both sites.

Even though Downing's plans are unlikely to come to fruition, maybe we should all start paying a little more attention to the terms of service on websites and networks in future, because let's face it how many of us have ever read through them? Thought so.

[Via Digital Trends Via CNet Image via Steakpinball]