>>>http://blog.glennf.com/mtarchives/004445.html
>>>
>>>So, Michel, how often does your site ping our blogs?
>>
>>Once every 15 minutes to see if an update is done. You can turn it off by
>>removing everything in regards to that from your account setup.
>
>I shouldn't have to change my settings to deal with a badly-behaved client.
>Can you please turn down the ping rate so that you aren't consuming 4x the
>bandwidth of your nearest competitor?

Actually, I have an even better idea. I just tested, and my host supports the "If-Modified-Since" header. If you use that, you can ping as much as you want, and use even less bandwidth than my previous suggestion!