Abstract: The present invention relates to the provision of interest management in peer-to-peer networks that provide a virtual environment for multiple users. One example of such an environment is an online gaming environment. The invention includes a switching algorithm (FIG. 9) that efficiently switches (902) the interest management provided by a peer to an entity between three protocols (cell, interest bounded and gossip) in response to the processing load on the relevant peer. This makes the interest management service scalable and reliable. The gossip protocol (FIG. 8) sends interest management information to the neighbours of the an entity, and also reduces the frequency of sending requests for interest management information to an interest management service for that entity.