[clandestine cookies] is sitemeter spying on you

Doctor Vee draws our attention to a very worrying matter:

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.

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.

Oh, a familiar story. The blog post written by StatCounter did not name the provider involved, but this was clearly what I had been experiencing recently. But I couldn’t find confirmation. Although I had an inkling that they were talking about Sitemeter, I couldn’t be certain.

Almost everyone I know uses Sitemeter and more than a few have had troubles with them. I'd never dreamed in a million years they'd be doing this sort of thing. Of course, we don't know and are not actually alleging anything. Is there any way we can find out for sure?