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.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.
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.
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.
I see that the tracking data data is sent to some random IP address: 216.55.133.99.
Traceroute ends with: the actual info below is changed by admin - you want it find it on your own or write to us we will respond - it is our site (house) we can do here what we believe is rightas long as it is legal!
>
>I see that the tracking data data is sent to
>some random IP address: 216.xxxxx.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)
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.xxxxxx.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.
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.
Why in the world would an art-oriented site host a service like this???
