Hey Lottery Corp - you're hotter than Antonella Barba!

Just how interested are Canadians in the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation ticket scandal?

More interested than they are in NASCAR, Anna Nicole Smith or contaminated pet food, we learned today.

Heck, the latest, just-released edition of the Yahoo! Canada Buzz Index shows that people all across Canada were more interested in the OLG happenings than in American Idol and (big moaning sigh) Antonella Barba.

Here's the Yahoo! Canada announcement:

************************* Money matters to Canadians in March - search for tax and lottery top Yahoo! Canada Buzz Index TORONTO, April 10 - Scandals fill the top 20 searches in March on Yahoo! Canada, with topics ranging from the troubled Ontario Lottery Corporation to the massive pet food recall across North American all appearing on the list.

But it's the heat of tax time that brought 'Revenue Canada' to the No. 1 spot on the list, with perennial favourite 'NHL' coming in at a distant second. Aside from the lottery and pet food scandals, American Idol's Antonella Barba [shown] performed strongly enough to remain in the top five, even though she was cut from the show early in the month.

Gossip-hungry Canadians also kept People Magazine, Perez Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and Britney Spears in the top 20. "In spite of the news and entertainment scandals that filled headlines throughout March, Canadians kept hockey in their hearts and taxes on their minds when searching online," says Oliver Ho, pop-culture specialist and editor of the Buzz Index for Yahoo! Canada.

Top 20 Searches: March 2007

1. Canada Revenue Agency/Revenue Canada 2. NHL 3. OLGC 4. Antonella Barba 5. Webkinz 6. American Idol 7. Runescape 8. Fantasy hockey 9. People Magazine 10. Perez Hilton 11. Menu Foods/Pet food recall 12. Environment Canada 13. 300 14. WWE 15. Neopets 16. TSX 17. Toronto Maple Leafs 18. Anna Nicole Smith 19. Britney Spears 20. NASCAR

Yahoo! Canada Buzz Index: How the online water cooler works The Yahoo! Canada Buzz Index provides insight and commentary for the top Canadian searches as measured by Yahoo! Canada Search.

After the data has been collected from the Yahoo! Canada Search log files, the Buzz Index team reviews the total number of people searching for specific subjects, along with spikes of interest in searches at particular times of the year. Editors then further filter out company names (such as Yahoo!), utilities and formats (e-mail, MP3 etc) and general terms (movies, downloads, hockey) to define and list subjects that are most relevant and of interest to the broadest possible audience.

To this end, searches for adults-only content are also excluded. "Top Movers" are the top 10 subjects with the greatest percentage increase in searches for a given week.

When a subject goes from zero to a large number of searches, it is referred to as a "Breakout."

About Yahoo! Canada Yahoo! Canada Co. is a leading Internet destination that provides online products and services to meet the needs of Canadians and offers a range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users.

Yahoo! Canada services Canadians in both English and in French through its sites, www.yahoo.ca and francais.yahoo.ca

Yahoo! Canada is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.

************************* Our readers respond:

Just an observation. In the 'Hey OLGC' piece by David Helwig the name is "Paris Hilton" not "Perez Hilton."

We holler back:

You are so, so, so last week! Perez Hilton is the talk of the blogosphere. Paris Hilton is a has-been underinflated blow-up sex toy.