Via Old Grouch:

Eric Odom » Did Sitemeter sell out to Spyware?

Last night a newsletter from StatCounter dropped in noting the website statistics providers recent refusal to accept big bucks to allow a third party spyware firm to place cookies in the code of EVERY user of statcounter services.

Not only did StatCounter take pride in refusing the offer, they also made it clear that one of the leading competitors had ACCEPTED the dirty money in exchange for cookie placement in the stat tracking code.

…In comes Sitemeter…

I have indeed been able to confirm, on two of my own sites, that Sitemeter is sending specificclick cookies onto websites hosting the counter. I immediately removed the counter and now have all of my sites using StatCounter or Google Analytics.

Sitemeter has gone silent today. Not a peep has been mentioned on their blog, and so far my e-mail has not been responded to.

I certainly hope Sitemeter will confront this, bail out on the spam advertiser, and get back on track. If not, users will be sure there is hell to pay.

So yes, it has been confirmed, Sitemeter has apparently sold out to Spyware.

What a shame.

Yeah, it is.

I guess I’ll look into Stats Counter. I already have the code for Google Analytics but, frankly, I don’t trust Google all that much.

Submit to Stumbled Upon!