Thanks to Pete for digging out the fact that SiteMeter has been planting tracking advertising cookies from Specific Media’s specificclick.net in its stat-generation code. Because I HATE tracking cookies and third-party crap, I dumped them from both here and the TownHall version of NRE. At the same time, StatCounter said that it specifically rejected Specific Media’s offer, so I now have their counter installed (at least here; I can’t install it over at the TownHall version). I do automatically reject third-party cookies with Internet Explorer (there’s no direct analog in Firefox, but I keep a tight leash there), so it didn’t affect me directly; however, most people aren’t savvy enough to do so. I apologize for unknowingly planting Specific Media’s crap on your computer.
The good news is that StatCounter has an invisible counter, which I took advantage of. The bad is that it’s a bit harder for you mugs to see just how few of you there are, so I dumped a “Site Stats” link in the Internal links section of the left sidebar.
I’ve also enlisted FeedBurner’s site stats, which is why you’re seeing an “Email this” link in the posts both on the site and in the feed, and seeing “Subscribe to this feed” in the posts on the site.
