Sitemeter users are bailing out at record numbers and the stat counting company has still not posted anything about it in their blog, privacy policy, or public website. In the end this will be a very painful lesson on how NOT to handle your public relations issues.
Since my original post, this blog has received about 250 to 350 visits per day searching for information regarding Sitemeter’s sell out to spyware advertisers. And since that first post, the blogosphere has been working overtime making sure that readers and other bloggers are aware of the devastating decision made by Sitemeter.
The following illustration was posted over at Debbie’s Blatherings.
Many of you use a service called Sitemeter to monitor your traffic; I do, or at least I used to. According to this post, the service is allowing a third-party spyware firm to plant cookies on their customers’ Web site visitors. The company was also apparently unwilling to respond to allegations, but did admit to at least one user that they have been beta testing a third-party cookie.
I have removed the Sitemeter counter from Blatherings, Inkygirl, and my Filk FAQ, will be removing it from my other blogs as well. I’m disappointed because I have been using Sitemeter’s service for several years and been happy with it up to now, and also just bought an upgraded account for Inkygirl.
Debbie isn’t the first to yank the Sitemeter code. I myself removed it from several blogs and I’ve seen countless posts over the past two weeks from bloggers who said the same.
It looks like this headache Sitemeter has created for itself isn’t going away anytime soon. This, my friends, is why you should NEVER deal with anyone who is could in any way be associated with spyware.
Just sayin’…
-Eric Odom
About eric:
Eric Odom is project manager for Blogivists.com. A web strategist by trade, Odom is currently working to develop infrastructure for activists within the liberty movement.
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9 Responses to “Sitemeter spyware saga continues”
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[...] Sitemeter spyware saga continuesâ?¦ [...]
Dear Eric,
The chatter in the blogosphere has gotten to the point that we feel we need to go outside of our companyblogand set the record straight regarding the SiteMeter utilization of the specificclick.net cookie. We have not addressed any comments in the blogosphere directly until now as we have made an official post on our own blog regarding this matter and have responded to every single email inquiry made directly to us via email and updated our privacy policy.
To be clear, SiteMeter fully vets out all potential 3rd parties that we work with to make sure that they are reputable companies that are completely above board and are industry leaders. In keeping with this, we did extensive due diligence on Specific Media and found them to be a trustworthy and reputable company. In fact, Specific Media is a board member of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) (one of 10 companies) which is tasked with the protection of consumer privacy on the Internet and related legislative issues. We found that Specific Media’s technology completely protects consumer privacy and also allows users to permanently opt out of the cookie if they so choose to do so via the NAI website, which was a big factor in us choosing Specific Media. In addition, many of the Internet’s biggest web publishers utilize Specific Media’s technology including Foxnews, CBS, NBC and Time.com. These companies utilize this technology in the same way that we are using it, to provide useful information about the users who visit their websites so that they can create relevant content on their websites. The only difference is that SiteMeter, which is primarily a free service, has licensed the technology and are passing it onto our customers.
The specificclick.net cookie is being inaccurately characterized as Spyware, as it is only a cookie and does NOT install any software. The specificclick.net cookie is NOT spyware. The specificclick.net cookie performs no such activities that can be construed as spyware. We cannot control the fact that anti-spyware software companies incorrectly mark cookies as spyware. However, the specificclick.net cookie IS a cookie that enables SiteMeter to accurately provide true unique user counts, user demographics, content interests, heat mapping and other useful information about your website’s visitors, see a full list here.
SiteMeter is a community driven company and we would never do anything that would compromise the integrity of our customers or their users’ privacy. All of our customers can opt out by requesting that we move them to a separate server that does not include the specificclick.net cookie or you can simply begin using the HTML version of our code which does not include the specificclick.net cookie. We have also posted a survey on our homepage where customers can vote if they think this type of information is useful. As previously stated, we are a community driven company, the SiteMeter community is what drives our innovation and development. We feel that this information will help our customers attract more users to their site and keep them engaged in relevant content offerings. If our customers vote on the site that they do not think that certain information is useful, then we will not provide that information.
We hope that clearly defines our use of the specificclick.net cookie and that SiteMeter has in no way sold out to Spyware, nor would we engage in any such activities. We are strictly committed to providing the best service to possible to our customers. We hope that this will help earn your trust and that we may be able to have you as a customer again.
Thank You,
SiteMeter Team
[...] The following is a comment just published to this post about Sitemeter and Spyware. Dear Eric, [...]
“We have not addressed any comments in the blogosphere directly until now as we have made an official post on our own blog regarding this matter…”
Am I just not seeing that? I’ve looked at their entire blog three times now, and searched for “specific,” but see no mention of this issue at all.
[...] I didn’t know it was SiteMeter at first because StatCounter did not mention the name of the other counter in their blog. However, I had a feeling that it could be SiteMeter. Maybe because I can’t think of any other MAJOR stat counters out there. LOL. Anyway, I googled away and found out a few blog post that confirmed my initial guessing — here, here and here. [...]
[...] Two and a half weeks after StatCounter broke the story and it began to spread across the web, SiteMeter has begun to respond to the issue both in the comments of my post and at much greater length in the comments on Eric Odem’s. [...]
[...] I’ve been getting Janette’s new site rolling and just installed her stat counter (GoStats – not crappy Sitemeter!). Will y’all click over so I can make sure it’s tracking referrals properly? [...]
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! iatrqyfdgcr
I understand the concern folks have over tracking cookies being placed on visitors’ computers. But these days, shouldn’t everyone be running a browser with 3rd-party cookies disabled anyway? I can’t see why this is such a big issue in practice.
Personally, I only allow sessions cookies from the originating site (except for a very few specific exceptions that I allow to live through a browser quit and relaunch). I also block thousands of ad/mal-ware sites in my hosts file. I can’t even surf to specificclick.com if I wanted to, unless I edit my hosts file first. So there’s no way in heck anyone gets much data on me at all.
Now, I don’t expect most casual web users to be so stringent, but anyone allowing 3rd-party cookies is just plain stupid.