Jeroen quoted:
> >Congratulations, http://www.geocities.com/jeroenvb.geo is
> >very popular and has been receiving a large amount of traffic. Your
> >site has become so popular, in fact, that our records indicate that
> >you're using more than the allotted amount of data transfer we provide
> >for a free web site, which is 3GB/month (measured on an hourly basis).
>
> I was not aware that my website was *that* popular! Oddly enough, the hits
> counter I set up is not aware of it either...
>
Jeroen, this is definately misleading, but I think I can see how this is a
true statement. 3 GB/month is ~4 Mbytes/hour. It is possible that you
had a high traffic hour, say right after you said something was on your
website? Could people have had 4 Mbytes worth of hits in that hour?
> When I did some checking, the following numbers came up:
> - Total number of hits: 1,047 since June 6, 1999
> - Average number of hits: ~1.3 hits per day
> - Size of website: 10.6 MB
>
> Now, if each and every visitor would have copied the entire site, that
> would have generated ~11 GB of data transfer over a 27 months period, or
> ~0.4 GB per month. Take into account that it is extremely unlikely that
> every visitor copies the entire site, and you are left with the burning
> question of how my site managed to get >3 GB/month in data transfers. (Or:
> how does my counter manage to miss most of the hits?)
>
But, this is an average transfer rate, not a peak transfer rate. I think
they quoted the peak rate.
> Of course, it all made a lot more sense when I got to the next two
paragraphs:
>
> >In the past we have not enforced that limit, so your site has been
> >uneffected thus far. However, shortly, all free member sites
> >transferring more than the allowable data limit will be disabled
> >for portions of the day until usage falls to within the prescribed
> >limits.
> >
Well, that might mean you are down for an hour after someone transfers >4
Mbytes in an hour.
> I sent them a mail, asking for the data on which they base their claim. I
> wonder if they will send it... (Nah, they probably will not.)
>
> Is this even legal? I mean, their message tries to sell you something,
> based on obviously false information. Where I come from, it is called
> "misleading advertising", for which a company can get some hefty fines.
>
Well, it is misleading, but it isn't false. Its probably unethical, but not
illegal. They "just happened" to use Gbytes/month as the rate instead of
Mbytes/hour. Its kinda like giving a car's acceleration in Giga-kilometers
per month squared instead of meters per second squared. (Acceleration
instead of velocity because low volume sites can have high transfer rates
for just a few seconds.) The trick here is the word _rate._
Dan M.
