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I haven't checked Chrome 17 yet, but they've had this feature for a while in chrome://flags/ and you can probably still turn it off.

On Chrome for Android they use this feature, too, but it's on default for "Wi-Fi only". I guess they could make a similar setting for laptops that use 3G connections, too.

I have 17-beta, but here's the flag:

"Prerender from omnibox

Enables prerendering of suggestions from the Omnibox and predicts appropriate network actions (prerendering, Instant, DNS preconnect) by calculating a confidence value for each Omnibox result."

Your options are Automatic, Enabled, Disabled. Default was Automatic.

Not only that but mobile networks often limit the number of open tcp/udp connections to an unbelievably low number. You could easily DoS yourself out of the network's tcp stack.

Also, preloading and rendering something like ten pages in parallel when I really want only one implies wasted wattage. There goes your battery too.

And not only your and other Chrome users bandwidth. It generates unnecessary traffic and slows down the whole network.