Employees who surf the Net at work could receive a bill each month for the cost of borrowed bandwidth and wasted time if Australia-based Exinda Networks’ URL- and bandwidth-monitoring system takes off. Exinda Networks says it’s developed a system that allows a company to monitor exactly which Web sites are visited by each employee and how much bandwidth has been used–in terms of a cash loss to the employer.

A Christmas-themed variant of the Zafi virus continued to plague networks and systems long after the last of the turkey had been eaten, accounting for almost half the virus reports in January. January was the second consecutive month Zafi.D topped the virus charts. The virus masqueraded as a Christmas greeting to trick users into thinking they were receiving an e-card from a friend.

Spam levels are about to skyrocket, according to experts who warned this week that spammers have developed a new way of delivering their wares. According to the SpamHaus Project–a U.K.-based antispam compiler of blacklists that block 8 billion messages a day–a new piece of malicious software has been created that takes over a PC. This "zombie" computer is then used to send spam via the mail server of that PC’s Internet service provider. This means the junk mail appears to come from the ISP, making it very hard for an antispam blacklist to block it.

You Software announced the free public preview of You Subscribe: RSS 0.8, a new RSS aggregator add-in for Outlook. The You Subscribe: RSS engine works in the background to gather, process, organize and store your RSS feeds whether Outlook is running or not. With background processing news feeds are seamlessly pulled into Outlook.

Consilient Technologies has launched Consilient Wireless University, its wireless training and services division. Consilient Wireless University delivers BlackBerry training courses for system administrators who implement wireless solutions for their organizations, in addition to device end users. Courses are open to organizations using MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Sun Messaging or any IMAP4 server.

Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox has blasted recent media reports that claim Microsoft has opened up its Office file formats. The reports state that Microsoft has reached an agreement with the state of Massachusetts to ease the licensing restrictions on its closely held Office XML formats. The compromise comes in response to the state’s new "Open Standards" policy, which, much to the chagrin of Microsoft, favors the purchasing of open source and open standards software.

Next month, Netscape is expected to release a test version of a Web browser designed to resist phishing schemes, taking aim at recent security vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Web browser. Netscape, a unit of Time Warner subsidiary America Online, has been recharging its browser activity in recent months, prodded by the success of its open-source spin-off, the Mozilla Foundation, and by the prospects of increased revenue through browser-based search queries. On Feb. 17, Netscape is expected to release both the second test, or "beta," version of Netscape 8 and a redesigned Netscape.com portal site.

Microsoft will integrate the Belgian eID Card with MSN Messenger. Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Belgian State Secretary for e-government Peter Vanvelthoven announced the alliance today in Brussels. The card contains an electronic chip and gradually will replace the existing ID card system in Belgium. Microsoft believes that combined with the eID Card, MSN Messenger chatrooms will be much safer.

Microsoft has reached its first major milestone in Web search with the release of its algorithmic search engine, which will compete against Google and Yahoo. The company on Tuesday completed its transition away from Yahoo’s search results with the introduction of its own search technology on the MSN Search site.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will ensure the software giant is "very responsive" to the antitrust demands of the European Union, he said on Tuesday. The EU’s executive Commission believes Microsoft is dragging its feet in implementing sanctions designed to level the playing field between it and its competitors.