Britney's belly butts Britannica offline

The naked midriff of pop princess Britney Spears managed to cause a major web jam for a whole month after record numbers of users attempted to download an image of the singer's pierced belly button.

In a bid to make itself more attractive to the young and trendy generation, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online ran a feature on "the semiotics of Britney Spears's belly button" which was meant to "explore how the cultural significance of belly buttons has changed over time by focusing on Britney as a cultural icon".

But once news got round that the article was accompanied by a picture of the star's navel, more than 17 million people attempted to log on to the site over the last month to download a copy of the photo, eventually locking up the site's web servers.

The Britannica article described Britney's belly button as "not strictly sexual, but, like Spears herself, not that innocent either".

It added later that the pierced navel is "a heated boundary between baby and babe".