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While some of these may be attributed to the fact that a user's view of the data is sometimes different to the Telecom's view -- since Telecom counts *every* byte that is sent or emanates from your modem -- whether you requested it or not.

As a result, denial-of-service attacks, pings, traceroutes and other unsolicited traffic can, in some cases, result in more data being transferred than can be accounted for by browsing, email or file transfers.

Telecom's response is reported to be that, to avoid incurring such additional traffic, Jetstream users should disconnect their modem from the phone line when their PC is not in use. This is the "always on" feature that the company pushes so heavily in respect to DSL??

However, others seem to have a valid case to suggest that there are still some major problems with Telecom's IP accounting system.

It seems that some people are finding discrepancies of several hundred megabytes (at up to 20c a megabyte) and there's no rational explanation as to where that data came from or went to -- if it existed at all.

If you've had problems with Telecom's IP metering then share them in the forums on this site or drop me an email -- I'd like to know about them.

Online Advertising
I see a report on the wires today that suggest revenues from online advertising are set to boom. Mind you, I see these predictions every few months so I'm not going to hold my breath.

More importantly, it appears that one of the most despised of all advertising formats -- the pop-up, may be about reach its use-by date.

Microsoft have announced that it will be including a pop-up blocker in the next incarnation of its browser. Gosh -- they're only about three years behind the independent browser and utility vendors on this one!

But how will advertisers respond?

It seems that many advertisers still believe that pop-ups are the most effective web-based advertising method, despite the strong negative response it generates amongst users.

My worry is that those who are currently inconsiderate enough to use pop-ups when they know most people hate them, may be tempted to switch instead to an even more evil method of advertising: spam.

And speaking of spam, here's an obnoxious little site that came to my attention this weekend after I received an email from it.

While it purports to be a useful resource that allows people to ask questions of well-targeted websites, it clearly has so much potential for abuse that it really is a menace.

I'm sure that blocking pop-ups is a good thing -- I just hope that it doesn't hoist us out of the frying pan into the fire.

If any Aardvark readers want to share an opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

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