Folks,
A few months back, StatCounter was approached by an advertiser, offered lots of $$$, and asked to include a spyware cookie on all of our member sites…we refused on the spot.
You install StatCounter to track visitors to your site NOT to open yourself and your visitors up to being spied upon by phantom advertising corporations.
It appears, however, that other players in the world of webstats were happy to take up this offer…
We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.
In light of this, StatCounter wants to assure you that we track your visitors for you, only you and not any one else.
Which provider would you prefer??
By the way, welcome to our new blog 😉
You made an ethical decision and in light of todays world, most companies do not do that – especially when money is on the table.
I appreciate the fact that you are posting and blogging about this because it is a big problem and so many people still being new to computers don’t have a clue what to look for or how to discover if they are being spied on.
I also appreciate that you allow so many stats for so many pages and charge us – what….NOTHING. Your service is par excellent. being in business, I know that excellence and integrity are what make you last. The rest, they come and go but to last is the thing. I’ve been *lasting* going on 15 years now so trust me that I value what you have done (and not done!) and I understand.
KUDOS to you and your staff! Anything I can do to help? Lemme know!
Melanie Kozik
Thanks very much for saying no! I’m really glad that you guys did that and I just wanted to thank you for giving such great service to us for free!
Thanks for saying no. That’s why I am happy to pay to use your services, cookies play an important role, but not to be abused. Thanks!
Statcounter is a great free service!
Congratulations on the new blog 🙂
…and thanks for being honest and protecting your members. I knew it was a good choice to use StatCounter on all my sites.
VERY shocked!
We said NO to this approach some months back.
WHY would anyone do this to their members? What were they thinking?
I still can’t believe it…
StatCounter Team
Good for you!
A question: You say you were shocked to find out that another stats provider had agreed to the practice. Really? How shocked were you?
Thanks for saying “No!” 🙂
You are, by far, the best Stat Provider I’ve ever heard about.
Keep up the wondeful work!
Hi Mike,
Not at all!! Let me explain what we have refused…
We don’t believe that we should abuse our member websites by sneakily using them to place OTHER people’s cookies on THEIR visitors’ browsers.
When you log onto the StatCounter website, we display ads to fund the service. This can result in cookies being created. As happens on any site. In fact, as you browse the web, you pick up lots of cookies.
Our point is, that we do not force extra cookies on the people who visit YOUR site. THAT is what is happening with another provider.
If you have StatCounter:
Clear your cookies.
Visit your OWN site.
You won’t see any cookies other than a StatCounter one – this means that we are NOT foisting nasty cookies on your visitors.
If you have “the other provider”:
Clear your cookies.
Visit YOUR site.
Gasp at the amount of cookies created – this is what all your visitors are being subjected to!
Does that make sense?
If you need any further info, just shout!
StatCounter Team
(By the way, on our upgraded accounts, you have the option to disable the ads.)
Thaks you for saying no.
I did as Admin says, clearing cookies, and simply logged into this site (statcounter.com). Below are the cookies set.
SpecificClick. net – tracking cookie – 6 cookies
MediaPlex.com – Ad service – 2 cookies
StatCounter – This site – 3 cookies
Clearing cookies and going to MediaPlex.com, the only cookies set were from their site.
I did the same, clearing cookies, and simply went to my site. The only cookies set were from my site, crazyegg, 103bees (both stats) and StatCounter.
So while StatCounter doesn’t affect your visitors, it apears either StatCounter or MediaPlex has added the SpecificClick.net tracking cookie and quite a few of them and the StatCounter users are being tracked by the very thing they claim to have refused.
StatCounter Team care to comment?
Hi Statcounter Staff,
Thanks for having integrity and a true concern for your customer’s welfare. Strangely these traits have become a rare commodity. You provide a great service and I recommend you often.
Hi Rory,
Thanks for the feedback. Would you mind posting this in the feature request section of the forum?
It will be picked up there by the development side of the house.
Cheers!
StatCounter Team
Thanks guys!!! -:-)
About cookies i think anyway is a good practice to delete them time to time. I use to delete all cookies and temp files more than once a week lol.
you can also check some programs that will fix your registry and check cookies and other malware. sometimes only antivirus is not enough…
have a nice day all 😉
How about putting the links to the stats on the My Projects page? At the moment one has to load the bar graph in order to get to, say, Visitor Paths. I’d prefer to be able to go straight there.
Some time it’s hard to make the right decision, do the right thing.
Hi Tom,
Check your cookies as described in the post to Rob.
Delete your cookies, visit your site and check your cookies again. This will let you see if any cookie nasties have been installed…
StatCounter Team
Hi Rob,
Thanks!!
One way you can find out is to delete all the cookies in your browser. (In Firefox you go to tools – options – show cookies and click ‘remove all cookies’. Other browsers are similar.)
Then visit the webpage you think may be installing spy cookies.
Check your cookies again and you’ll be able to see how many were created by your last visit.
Hope this helps!
StatCounter Team
I think naming and shaming your competitors who do this offensive practice would be *good* form.
Especially since some of us *cough* might have more than one visitor tracker installed on their weblog…
I wonder how one checks?
Thanks for not folding to $$$$!!
Is there a way to find out if a stat provider has spy cookies?? Reason I ask is that I also use Google Analytics to track my site in addition to StatCounter.