I have always wondered what it might have been like to count Internet searches during the O.J. Simpson trial. This may be as close as we come to finding out. Searches for the Kobe Bryant rape case have now risen from the level of "ridiculous" to the level of "ludicrous," with the level "completely absurd" clearly on the horizon.

For the week ending July 19, searches for the Kobe Bryant case ranked #14 on the Lycos 50. Since then, searches have skyrocketed by around 6,000 percent. Searches for the case -- combining searches for Bryant, for his accuser, and for his wife Vanessa Laine -- are now 15 times more popular than any other topic on the Internet. Just the name of the accuser (which we will not publish) would be the #1 topic on Lycos right now if we counted it alone and didn't take into account searches for Bryant or those such as Kobe Bryant victim that don't give her actual name.

What are people searching for when they search for the accuser in this case? About one of seven searches asks for her by name; other searches ask what her name is. Many of the searches are asking for Kobe Bryant accuser pictures. There are searches for Kobe Bryant accuser info. There are even searches for Eagle County High School, which I would assume are seeking gossip from her high school days.

In general, news stories get far more searches online when there is an angle that the standard media cannot or will not discuss. The Daniel Pearl kidnapping videotape was an example of this, since it was not aired by news programs but was available online. This same concept was demonstrated during the Iraq war -- when American news programs would not show the videotape of American prisoners of war, curious people came to the Internet and searched for the video as well as the Arab network that was broadcasting it, Al-Jazeera.

I think this is what is powering the high level of searches right now. Americans clearly seem to be curious about this woman, and they cannot get the information they want from standard news organizations. So they go online, resulting in a gargantuan amount of search traffic.

The searches of the past few days seem to indicate a major dilemma for high-profile sexual assault cases in the Internet era. With so much information available online, and so little policing of what sites are publishing, no high-profile rape victim can count on remaining anonymous. Major news organizations may keep this woman's name and picture private -- and we certainly are not going to print her name -- but independent websites (and, as noted above, talk show hosts) are revealing this woman's name and stories about her past that may or may not be true.

There are only three stories in the history of the Lycos 50 that have triggered more Internet searches than the Kobe Bryant indictment: the September 11 terrorist attacks, the second week of the Iraq war when the POW videotape was aired by Al-Jazeera, and the 2000 election and recount. The Bryant case has been a bigger story online than the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the fall of the space station Mir, or the death of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt. And this is just the indictment -- what will happen when the actual trial begins?

Here is our ranking of the ten biggest stories the Lycos 50 has covered since August 1999, based on searches over a single week:

1) September 11 (Sep. 2001)
2) Iraq war (Mar. 2003)
3) Election 2000 (Nov. 2000)
4) Kobe Bryant indictment (Jul. 2003)
5) Space shuttle explosion (Feb. 2003)
6) Dale Earnhardt dies (Feb. 2001)
7) Federal Do Not Call list debuts
(June 2003)
8) 2000 Olympics at peak (Sep. 2000)
9) 2002 World Cup at peak (June 2002)
10) Hurricane Floyd (Sep. 1999)