The international media giant's chief executive, Jonathan Miller, says the company's latest products - including an online treasure hunt show - herald an 'explosion' in net-based viewing

Time Warner, the world's largest media group, is nearing an agreement to pay up to $750m (£401m) in a settlement with the US regulator over wide-ranging allegations of accounting irregularities at its America Online internet business.

Millions of British e-mail addresses have been sold to spammers by an employee of an internet company who now faces up to five years in prison.

I'm interested in buying a small amount of shares in either Ericsson or Nokia. What is the best way to do this, especially since Nokia is listed on both the Nasdaq and the Finnish stock market?

People who fear they may be missing out on the stock market boom because of a lack of cash flow need worry no more. American online brokers are set to start lending money to help people buy shares. This practice, known as margin trading, will help boost volumes and allow people to buy more shares. If share prices continue to rise then investors will get their profits, minus the stockbroker's commission. However, it leaves people vulnerable if there is a sudden downturn.

OFTEL, THE telecoms regulator, ruled yesterday that British Telecom will have another 19 months before it must provide local network access to competitors, such as MCI WorldCom and AOL, who wish to offer high-speed Internet services.

The Motley Fool Rule Shaker portfolio is a real money portfolio, in which the Fool's own money is invested. It is run for educational purposes and the progress is tracked on the Motley Fool website three times a week. It is not run as a share-tipping exercise, and readers should never take our purchases as recommendations. Foolish investors do their own research and make their own decisions.

"HELLO EVERYBODY! I am forwarding this because the person who sent it to me is a good friend and does not send me junk. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet company and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. For every person that you forward this message to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00. I thought this was a scam myself, but within days I received a cheque for $24,800.00."

No 297: Smile

Homework help lines are exploding all over the Internet. School children are logging on to sites where, in theory, all their questions can be answered. But are they any good or just time wasting? By Hilary Wilce

FREESERVE WILL celebrate its maiden first-quarter figures today with a share price which opens at exactly the same level as when the company was floated in July. After its recent battering the share price added 15p yesterday to close at 150p.

Analysts talked up Freeserve, says Dan Gledhill, and investors may wonder why they listened