Telstra has confessed to ZDNet Australia that someone within its ranks has been manipulating online surveys to show results favouring Telstra.

From the ZDNet Australia article:

ZDNet Australia set up a poll at 3pm on Thursday, which asked readers: "Does Telstra's BigPond Internet service provide value for money?" At about 5pm, 25 respondents to the poll said no, value for money wasn't provided by the national carrier, with just one reader saying otherwise.

Within half an hour, the survey had bulked up dramatically, sparking a disbelieving turnaround in Telstra's favour. Within those thirty minutes, a massive 287 respondents had apparently logged a favourable vote for Telstra — a response rate never seen before in previous ZDNet Australia polls and a bit of a dubious blackflip in light of the widespread criticism Telstra has attracted in response its Net price hikes.

ZDNet Australia logs showed that a "bot" on IP address registered to Telstra's Internet Managed Services (IMS) division, had indeed been set to fix the survey results and consistently hit the "yes" option of the poll every second.

Read the astounding article at ZDNet Australia here