In a very public way Statcounter which is an awesome statistics provider and one that i personally use on one of my main sites, has drawn attention to solicitations by other statistic gathers who have begun inserting cookies.

I am very impressed that Statcounter management has turned this down. There are much more user friendly ways of monetizing a site, which have to do with providing a user friendly service that people recommend.

This is the path they have taken. Surprisingly this revelation has created a storm on Digg and their new Statcounter blog has  been dug over 842 times which no doubt would have shot them on to page one of the popular social bookmarking site.

Statcounter is free with paid options but the free one is fine for most small web sites. I am

very happy with the reporting and service, plus they are unobtrusive and not constantly shoving stuff down our throats. The sort of guys that I am happy to support when the time comes to upgrade, which could be soon:)