Webstats, cookies and CJS.

It's been reported this week that many websites are using inaccurate traffic statistics. It's been found that cookies used to track user behaviour could be over-counted. If, like CJS, you regularly remove the junk from your system you'll probably remove all of those annoying cookies in your temporary files, that makes us 'serial resetters' apparently. Getting rid of the cookies makes some sites deposit another one on your system and that is logged by that site as a new unique user – so if you've ever wondered how some places can claim to have huge numbers of users now you know. You'll be delighted to know that CJS has never used this system of tracking users. We count the number of times a page or file is accessed on our system which provides a more accurate reflection of web usage. Admittedly it's not as easy as having a little gizmo which counts for you but we feel it sits better with our ethical status. If you'd like to know more about web counting tools please have a look at the BBC report at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6564671.stm