Been wondering why Rumorville's been so darned quiet lately? We sure have. Usually the week before a major Apple event (such as next week's Worldwide Developers Conference) has the citizens busy as bees on coke, dishing all the dirt they can find and revealing top secret insider info in a rush to be the first with the scoop before Apple springs its surprises at the show. Instead, it's less than a week before Zero Hour and all we've seen that remotely resembles leaked Apple info is one report on the likely introduction of multiprocessor G4s. Most surprising of all, we all know that Mac OS X is going to be the star of the show, and yet we've heard hardly a peep from news or rumors sites about their experiences with (cough) "evaluation copies." Even coverage of the recent Developer Preview 4 release has been awfully low-key.

Now, that could mean that Apple's done an admirable job of plugging its leaks. It could also mean that Apple just doesn't have anything interesting to unveil next week, so there's been nothing to uncover. But an intriguing-- and somewhat sinister-- third possibility has surfaced, courtesy of a faithful viewer whose identity shall remain hidden to preserve his well-being. Have you noticed all those WWDC ad banners flying high on so many Mac-centric sites recently? (We don't see how you could miss them; they're in heavier rotation than that damn "Millionaire" show we can't seem to get away from.) The next time you're at a site sporting a WWDC banner, try this little experiment: dig around and try to find anything there that might qualify as rumor or speculation about what might happen at WWDC. If our source is right, you may be surprised at how tough it turns out to be; the most you'll find is perhaps a reference to "official" news from Apple, such as a press release repackaged as a "news item."

The deal, we've been told, is that sites advertising WWDC are under strict orders from Apple not to publish any rumors or speculation about what may happen at the event. What's this? Editorial content being shaped by advertising dollars? Well, no, not exactly... we hear that Apple's paying sites in product, not dollars, with the number of clickthroughs for the ads determining how much gear each site will get-- but if any of them dare to dish dirt about WWDC, the deal's off. If this is true (and for what it's worth, even while wearing "conspiracy-colored glasses," we're hard-pressed to find evidence of a deliberate cover-up, but we'll go along with it just for the sake of plot development), then journalistic integrity's just taken one more hit on the chin. Of course, if Apple came to us with the prospect of receiving a shiny new G4 in the mail, you can bet that all WWDC-related content (except for an Aqua-looking banner ad bearing the caption, "For the love of Mike, click me! Please!") would vanish quicker than a popsicle in a blast furnace. Then again, we've never claimed any pretensions to journalism in the first place; "we're not a news site, but we've seen one on TV!"