First of all you have confused two things (services) -
our referrers and the one that has nothing to do with us - we just using it ExtremeTracking. that has been around for more than 10 years...

in fact, our referrers are fed throug jave and search engines do not see the list...
"extreme tracking" put its output in html so we can view the stats and perhaps we will encode access to it into java, but for the reasons different than protecting your "bomb-links" from being discovered - that is your respocibility!

>Do the truefresco site developers read this
>forum? I did some searches in the forums and
>didn't find any conferences that talk about this
>subject.
>

There is NO need to talk about this "subject" - as you pointed out we are artists running art oriented website
not software developers, therefore what there is to talk about? It is plain simple - do "you" want to know whom to say Thank You for helping "you" to have "your" art seen without paing arm-and-a-leg for server costs and advertising? use our free service... we will pickup the tab... or do not use... it is upto the individual we do not force you to do it!

>I hate to be a fuddie-duddie, but I don't
>appreciate the feature that lists the referring
>pages. I for one have a private page where I
>link to other pages. And while I don't object to
>the site maintainers having a look at it, I
>don't necessarily want it to be made public. The
>next time a search engine scans your page, my
>bookmarks page suddenly becomes available to
>anybody world-wide.

The description of the service clearly states in plain English:
"To list referrers to your site all you need to do is to copy/paste a single line of JavaScript code (below) within the page you want to track.
You can place this code on as many pages as you wish - it will produce custom referrers list specific to that page - referrers will inherit colors and font type from the defaults of your page!"

so if you do not want a certain page seen - hide it! we can not do it for you look for how-to in references to .htacces - you can specify to deny acces to any page you want there or password-protect it, or simply put robot.txt file on your site instracting robot not to visit that page "they SE robots will "listen" this is why it exists (robot.txt)

>
>As it turns out, I keep my bomb-making links
>elsewhere, so I don't have to worry about the
>FBI. (That's a joke, btw.) But there might be
>other links in there that I would find
>embarassing, especially if seen by my boss or
>children. So now I have to go through it
>line-by-line and sanitize it (now done).
>Hopefully google's cache will get flushed out
>after a while.

just as i wrote above - password-protect it use robot.txt or .htaccess.

It is funny that you are complaining to us that you have something to hide!!! Internet is a public domain - you want to keep something hidden do what the definition of the word "hidden" suggests - HIDE IT!

>
>I know you claim that no personal information is
>collected. However, it is reasonable to assume
>that your readers might have their own "links"
>page that they use, and making that page public
>certainly discloses their reading habits (not
>only within your site, but across the entire
>web).

>Maybe you could claim that it would be
>difficult to correlate a person's link page with
>their account, or maybe you could claim that you
>only keep their account info private. Either
>way, I believe you are violating the spirit of a
>reasonable privacy policy.

We do not keep any accounts for referrers and no personal info! None Zero! Zilch! You perhaps need to read in the "personal info" definition.
All we do is host the record of referring page to user page, pay for bandwidth, and making sure there is enough CPU on the server to provide something that over 20,000 people want (you are the first complainer)

>
>I see that the tracking data data is sent to
>some random IP address: 216.55.133.99.
>
>Traceroute ends with:
>
>9 so-8-0.hsa1.rtgfgf.Lfghl3.net
>(4.68.112.130)
>10 Aplus-hellow dolly.net (209.66565.6565)
>11 core01.dfhgkjjk.net (454.63143.644)
>12 216-55-133-99.holup.personal.net
>(xxx.xxx.xxx)
>
>That does not appear to be related to
>truefresco.com, whose traceroute ends with:
>
>14 edtnabxldr01.fhfhf.com (20747453534..105)
>15 209.115.218.218 (20977375402.)
>16 cfgh0fdgh.edm.fgd.com
>(75557.ghgh.22)
>17 ip-7527.tera7527.com (7575.dfg228)

The above is the info that can be concedered "personal info" because it relates to a particular individual and names are called and the named entities did not authorise to post it! However this info is in Public Domain - the only reason you've got it, so posting it without authorization is a moral issue.

>Do you own/operate that server? Is it
>owned/operated by Extreme Tracking? By offering
>this as a large-scale service to many different
>web sites, the owner/operator of 216.55.133.99
>will have access to an awful lot of information,
>much of which could be mined to determine
>people's browsing habits. And it is entirely
>possible that the IP address of the end user
>(me) is recorded along with my referring page.

How do you think Spam control software operates?
It records spam patterns and ip's associated with it and based on that info stops spam.
Did they ask me or you about the right to compare our email/ip/host with their database? ... ah, so i tought.
It is PUBLIC Domain.

>Finally, as anybody can see by looking at the
>bottom of your own page
>http://www.truefresco.org/referrers.htm, it is
>very easy to hack the system and fill it with
>spam links.

This will be our problem to solve, but thank you for concern... as of for the user remove the referrers java code from the page and it is GONE.

>Why in the world would an art-oriented site host
>a service like this???

You found our site, didn't you? So as thousands of others... As well as thousands of users got millions of visitors to their pages without thousands of dollars in advertising.

Or you will suggest to pay to advertizing companies to research YOUR browsing habbits to deliver our Art Ad?

In fact referrer script does not research anything - it records active links that point to user page - no link - no record - a simple link exchange
Don't you think that Artists better spend their "tear-calling" ressources on creating ART?