She's laughing at you, fandom. LAUGHING AT YOU.

"The inevitable next step is for Kim Kardashian to sit on the board of a tech start-up, host a global-poverty-awareness event and write a book on behavioral neuroscience." [New York Times]

The tax man's hanging round Apple's door, and now Tim Cook is due to appear before Congress on the matter. [Telegraph]

For her science fair project, this teenaged girl invented a supercapacitor that could maybe, with further development, charge your electronics lightening fast. Everyone's now feeling pretty bad about their baking soda volcano, huh? [Jezebel]

Matt Mullenweg says that talk of Yahoo buying Tumblr sent Wordpress imports from Tumblr skyrocketing, from 400-600 posts per hour to 72,000 on Sunday. Of course, that could've just been one really dedicated porn reblogger. [AllThingsD]

Tumblr users are having a collective meltdown to rival The China Syndrome (only onetime Yahoo users are old enough to get that joke). [Buzzfeed]

More importantly, is that a picture of the Zuckster at a rave? According to the DJ shown in the image at left, the photo was taken three years ago. [Gawker]

Note to BlackBerry: Next time you launch a big new product, maybe better to firm up your release date before you hire Alicia Keys to sing your praises. [Bloomberg]

Sometimes matching a business model to a celebrity founder is like picking out the right pair of shoes to go with a pair of new pants. ShoeDazzle, the online shoe-seller cofounded by Kim Kardashian, dropped its subscription model a year ago. Now the subscription package is back. [AllThingsD]

A man was shot dead in Georgia after a GPS error lead him to the wrong house. [Gizmodo]

Kim K, queen of the selfies. (Photo: Instagram)

Much ink has already been spilled over Instagram's new updated terms of service, which specifically states that it can use your photos for "advertising and promotions." Twitter users erupted in outrage over the news, with many techies claiming they would soon be quitting the service. Wired wrote a helpful how-to on how to download your photos and delete your account. Photographer Clayton Cubitt, who is not at all hyperbolic, called it Instagram's suicide note. Gizmodo called everyone whiny babies and offered a counterpoint: "shut up."

While the hype may be somewhat overblown (we highly doubt the masses quit Instagram over this), the ambiguity introduced by the new terms has understandably led to much confusion. If all you take is brunch photos or pics of the sunset and don't mind those showing up in ads, bully for you. But what happens if Instagram decides to use photos of your young siblings or children to advertise a product? As Anil Dash put it, “It’s very likely they’d use a photo of my son to sell stuff to my parents, without me knowing."

That concern also extends to users as young as 13, who are also subject to Instagram's new policy. As Bloomberg points out, taking photos of underage users for ads raises some thorny privacy and safety concerns.

And what about the BaddieBey's, Riri's and ChampagnePapi's of the world? Celebrities have also become prolific users of the seemingly-intimate photo sharing service. Instagram’s new TOS says the service has the right to share your photos, username, likeness and metadata with third party advertiser. This means they could feasibly take a photo of Kim Kardashian’s cat Mercy (RIP) and use it in an advertisement for the SPCA. As it did with professional photographers, this invokes questions about how much control you have over own content and likeness.

Some celebs are already worried about this. On his Google Plus page (lol), Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton writes:

Here's what I'm wondering: if Kaley Cuoco uses Instagram to share a photo of her and Melissa Rauch doing something silly, does that mean that Instagram can take that photo and use it to advertise for something silly without compensating them for what becomes a use of their likeness for commercial purposes? I can see that being a pretty serious shitstorm if it happens.

It’s unlikely that Instagram will alter its policy to protect celebrities. For all its celebrity-courting, famous people on Twitter use the service pretty much like the rest of us. But it also seems unlikely that publicists will be okay with the service making money off of their clients’ likenesses. Either way, it would behoove Instagram to clarify just how it intends to use our data before Snapchat starts looking like the only safe place to share.

(h/t to HeyVeronica, who got us thinking about this whole thing.)

Update:

Turns out celebrities really are angry about this whole Instagram TOS update. P!nk tweeted that she'll be quitting, as will Saved By the Bell star Tiffani Amber Thiessen, whom we did not even know had an Instagram

Sexy? (Wikipedia)

There's no accounting for differences of taste or opinion. Some people see celebrity-founded ecommerce startups as evidence of an inflating bubble. Others are busy raising money from rap stars' managers. Some people go for Jessica Alba's girl-next-door looks and sex-symbol status. Others prefer "middle-aged, slightly out-of-share Korean."

That last according to The New York Times profile of Brian Lee, a Silicon Valley fixture who's made his name helping stars launch businesses focusing on the consumer web. Mr. Lee got his start more than a decade ago by partnering with former O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro on LegalZoom. His current projects include Kim Karshashian's subscription service, ShoeDazzle—which raised $66 million in venture capital, but appears to be flailing—and Ms. Alba's The Honest Company, which sells eco-friendly baby products.

Mr. Lee's secret to wedding entertainment and technology players? According to Jeremy Liew, managing partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, an investor in ShoeDazzle, it's one part Hollywood connections, one part force of personality. "He’s a middle-aged, slightly out-of-shape Korean guy who got Jessica Alba and Kim Kardashian to start companies with him," Mr. Liew told the Times.

According to Ms. Alba, her partner has a certain appeal for tech investors. “I was just turned down by so many people because it wasn’t sexy,” she told the Times.

Then she started showing up to meetings with Mr. Lee.

Person of interest. (Photo: David Shankbone, via Flickr Creative Commons

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Internet got what it's so clearly needed all along: an, ahem, portal to the universe of smut. Launched September 27, Search.xxx is meant to provide a secure alternative to just Googling your most secret fetish, so you won't get outed the next time someone borrows your laptop.

ICM Registry, the company behind the site, reached out to Betabeat to share a few statistics. Search.xxx received a whopping billion impressions within its first week, as grateful porn connoisseurs and teens stuck using the family computer flocked to the site.

The most searched celebrity, we are told, is Kim Kardashian. Given that she owes much of her fame to a sex tape, we believe this is what's called “coming full circle.” Her name "has seen between 1K and 2K unique searches in just 2 weeks," a spokesperson told Betabeat via email. Also appearing on the famous-lady leaderboard: Paris Hilton, Jenna Jameson, and Kate Middleton. One of these things is not like the other!

Other details: "Blondes" far outstripped "brunettes" in popularity over the same two-week period, with approximately 10,000 searches versus 5,500. (Whether it was actually gentlemen expressing their preferences is anyone's guess.) That old straight-guy standby, "lesbian," was searched around 10,000 times, with "bisexual" coming up a distant second at 7,000, and "gay" bringing up the rear, with 6,400.

Imagine what old Mr. Kinsey would have to say.

And to think: You've already done so much for us.

Thankfully, December has brought us a bright spot in the otherwise murky cesspool of Western Society that involves her: Searches on The Internet. Which she has finally been beaten in. By the iPhone.

Reuters reports on information released by Yahoo today:

The digital media company said the smartphone proved more popular than reality television celebrity Kim Kardashian, pop star Katy Perry and singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who placed in the top five..."This is the first time since 2002 that we have had a gadget at No.1, which is an iPhone." Vera Chan, a Web trend analyst at Yahoo!, said in a conference call announcing the results of the review now in its 10th year.

Steve Jobs' legacy lives on, and it wasn't even having the worst day before this.

That said:

American Casey Anthony, the woman acquitted of the murder of her young daughter after a highly publicized trial, was No. 2.

So, you know, we're still...us. But some hope is better than a black pool of nothingness where hope could possibly exist.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek