PALO ALTO, Calif. (CNN/Money) - The Internet bubble is long gone, but one of the era's many accounting issues -- bartering, also known as non-cash transactions -- is alive and well. Given that the public and Wall Street suddenly are fascinated with accounting matters, it makes sense that attention would turn now to one of the most obviously duplicitous techniques by which companies puff up their revenues.

Consider these recent items from the funny pages:

• Gemstar-TV Guide International (GMST: up $0.59 to $9.60, Research, Estimates), acknowledges that $20 million of its recent "revenue" actually was the result of a barter transaction in which it traded ad space for intellectual property belonging to a customer.
• Cnet (CNET: down $0.15 to $5.08, Research, Estimates), the online tech-news publisher, discloses that 6.4 percent of its 2001 revenues, or $18.4 million, came from barter transactions, the highest level of barter revenues Cnet has reported in three years.
• Seitel (SEI: up $0.35 to $11.00, Research, Estimates), the seismic data librarian, says 13.4 percent of its 2001 revenue resulted from non-cash deals. In a conference call, noted here Monday, Seitel's CEO makes a big point of explaining that the barter transactions were verified by a third-party valuation firm.

Why all the fuss?

Well, barter transactions were fine when farmers would meet at the fence post and trade, say, three chickens for two gallons of milk and a bale of hay. The farmers probably didn't have any currency, which might have been of dubious value anyway, so trading commodities was a fair deal.

But these transactions were less fine when a lot of Internet companies started doing it a few years ago. For at least 100 years, we've had the Almighty Dollar to buy and sell with, and it's fair to ask if companies reporting revenue in anything but cold hard cash are attempting a little game of hide-the-ball. A lot of those Internet companies, of course, aren't around anymore.

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"A barter deal is a lot easier," notes Brian Oakes, a semi-retired stock analyst and longtime observer of goofy accounting practices. "[But] what they're really doing is making it foggier," he says.

To be clear, there's nothing illegal about barter transactions, provided they're accounted for in good faith. It's just that investors typically don't respect them. If a company can't be bothered to put a true value on its products, investors might not be bothered to put a high value on the company's stock. Too confusing, too much trouble.

Speaking of the almighty dollar, it was interesting to whom Hewlett Packard turned for advice on dumping dissident shareholder Walter Hewlett from its board (see "Board to drop Hewlett"). According to a company release, it consulted with John C. Coffee Jr., a noted corporate governance expert and the Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Coffee is in the Rolodex of nearly every journalist who writes on securities issues. Scribes will want to keep in mind that the good professor is also is at times more than a disinterested observer -- an HP spokeswoman confirms that the company "formally engaged" Coffee for his guidance.

Adam Lashinsky is a senior writer for Fortune magazine. Send email to Adam at adam_lashinsky@timeinc.com.

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