Five years of the Lycos 50, five years where Britney Spears reigns as the most popular female of the Internet according to searches by Lycos users.

Britney had actually fallen off the top 10 list earlier in the year. By summertime, she was at her lowest rank ever, floating around in between #10 and #20. But in August, she climbed back to the top following a succession of publicity stunts generating much search activity. Between her topless photos on the covers of British Elle Magazine and Rolling Stone, her bottomless photo on the cover of Esquire and, most significantly, her kiss with Madonna during the MTV Video Music Awards, Web users were searching for Britney one more time.

Or, maybe ten more times.

Britney's year of living toplessly makes her popular enough to stay ahead of the surging Paris Hilton, the world's most famous unsuspecting amateur porn star. Hilton was getting a few searches, and interest in her was slowly rising until she finally broke into the Lycos 50 in October thanks to many camera appearances during a Monday Night Football game featuring boyfriend Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears. Of course, it is a camera appearance with a different ex-boyfriend that shot Hilton searches into the stratosphere in November. The first week the Paris Hilton porn tape was widely available on the Internet, it received six times as many searches as #2 term KaZaA and eight times as many as #3 term Britney Spears.

Here are the Top 20, with last year's rank in parentheses:

1. Britney Spears (1)
2. Paris Hilton (-)
3. Pamela Anderson (2)
4. Brooke Burke (7)
5. Jennifer Lopez (5)
6. Kobe Bryant's Accuser (-)
7. Christina Aguilera (9)
8. Anna Kournikova (3)
9. Carmen Electra (15)
10. Avril Lavigne (13)

11. Hilary Duff (-)
12. Madonna (19)
13. Oprah Winfrey (10)
14. Beyonce (-)
15. Shakira (6)
16. Aaliyah (11)
17. Martha Stewart (8)
18. Angelina Jolie (20)
19. Olsen Twins (-)
20. Shania Twain (-)

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Paris Hilton has the most searches, but the new female star of 2003 that we'll hear the most from in future years is Hilary Duff (#11). In January, when we wrote about her as One to Watch, she was the somewhat interesting star of a popular cable sitcom. Eleven months later, she's spent four months on the Lycos 50 and has a hit movie and a platinum album on her resume. She now gets eleven times as many searches as she did a year ago. As Britney's audience has become almost entirely adult men, the teenagers who used to idolize her have all moved to Hilary.

THE NAMELESS ONE: We've often written that the desire to find information not given by conventional news sources drives many of the searches for news events. This summer, the colossal number of searches for the Kobe Bryant rape case stood as proof of this axiom. Over half of the queries searched not for Bryant himself but for information about the name and personal history of Kobe Bryant's Accuser (#6); there were enough requests for this woman to put her on the list of the top ten women of 2003. Roughly one in six searches for the accuser request her using her actual name; the others say things like Kobe accuser and Kobe victim.

These searches demonstrated 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 kept the woman's name and picture private but independent websites and radio talk show hosts revealed this woman's name, plus stories about her past that may or may not be true.

ALSO BIG IN 2003: Murder victim Laci Peterson (#23), wrestling babe Torrie Wilson (#24), porn star-turned-California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey (#26), TV and movie action babe Jennifer Garner (#39), Grammy-winning singer Norah Jones (#41).

HOT IN 2002, NOT SO HOT IN 2003: Taiwanese politician and unsuspecting amateur porn tape star Chu Mei-Feng was the #4 woman of 2002, but doesn't even make the top 100 women of 2003. Searches for ex-"Queen of Nice" Rosie O'Donnell plummeted 92 percent. Also, figure skaters Jamie Sale and Michelle Kwan, model Tyra Banks, and singer Pink (who's hot again for 2004 with a brand-new album).

COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: Demi Moore (#38) searches went up 50 percent thanks to her movie return as the villain of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and her tabloid-friendly relationship with younger man Ashton Kutcher.

IT'S A MYSTERY: We're still not sure why pinup Carmen Electra (#9) had such a resurgence in 2003.

GOOD CALL: Our Women Ones to Watch last year all hit the Lycos 50 at various times this year: Beyonce, Garner, and T3 villain Kristanna Loken.

ONES TO WATCH 2004: She's already hot, but the summer of 2004 should be dominated by Halle Berry and her role as the leather-suited Catwoman... Gwen Stefani of No Doubt is following the lead of Beyonce and making her first solo record in 2004, and it she also may follow Beyonce onto the Lycos 50... The latest hottie of the wrestling world is Dawn Marie; could a Playboy pictorial be around the corner?

MONDAY: OK, we've got the men and the women. What if you get a group of them together and hand somebody a microphone? Yes, it's 2003's Most Wanted Bands.