Patent ID: 8635128

Claim:
A method for a billing system of a service provider, the service provider operating a data network providing a plurality of end users metered access to a plurality of content from a plurality of content providers, the method comprising: providing a packet inspection server, the packet inspection server operating to examine content passing from any content provider of the plurality of content providers through the data network of the service provider to any end user of the plurality of end users; receiving a set of identifiers from a set of the plurality of content providers, the set of identifiers identifying a subset of the plurality of content that the set of content providers designates for delivery to any end user of the plurality of end users without the end user incurring metered usage charges with the usage charges instead being incurred by a content provider that originates the delivered content; configuring the packet inspection server with the set of identifiers; inspecting at the packet inspection server, first content and second content for an identifier of the set of identifiers, wherein the first content and the second content is originated by a particular content provider of the plurality of content providers and passes through the data network to the particular end user; and tracking billable usage of the data network, wherein tracking the billable usage, when the first content does not comprise any identifier of the set of identifiers and the second content comprises one identifier of the set of identifiers, comprises i) entering into the particular end user's usage log, data network usage by the particular end user that is related to delivery of the first content, ii) filtering from the particular end user's usage log, data network usage by the particular end user that is related to delivery of the second content, and iii) entering into the particular content provider's usage log, data network usage by the particular end user that is related to delivery of the second content.