Help Keep StatCounter from being falsely flagged as spyware

'Kay --

If a person uses anti-spyware, I have noted at least one case where statcounter.com gets flagged.

On the following theory :

1) most computer users have no/very limited idea(s) how to protect themselves during their websurfing

2) spyware/malware is a real problem

3) lots of media coverage on this issue recently, resulting in 4) :

4) even fairly clueless users are now using anti-spyware, a trend that will only increase dramatically during the coming year

5) with increasing clue comes increasing effectiveness; IT professionals (myself included) have been/are/and will strongly advise users how to protect themselves

6) the result, should we succeed, is that users will much more aggressively block out any website that even remotely stinks of spyware

I want to solve the problem :

1) statcounter.com is getting flagged

2) users who see this (flagged and described in very scarey language) are likely/increasingly likely to block any such site identified

3) other page count sites accept cookies and do not get flagged

4) how can statcounter.com be used without getting flagged as a tracking cookie/data miner

My question is directly based on the fact that I allow a lot of other counter sites to set cookies & they are not getting flagged or immunized by either AdAware or SpyBot. Statcounter is getting flagged by AdAware. Let us not argue about AdAware, and let us not argue that other sites DO get flagged. I want to focus on how statcounter can still work without getting flagged.

Since I cannot force computer users to use the anti-spyware most convenient for my purposes, it is my responsibility to set up a website that does not get flagged by any commonly used or otherwise professional quality software.

Keep in mind that MacroSuck (TM) is about to integrate anti-spyware into its operating systems, I cannot overstate how concerned I am that statcounter NEVER NEVER _N_E_V_E_R_ get flagged with even the most remote taint of spyware.

Originally Posted by in another thread about AdAware, chrisooc

XP & SP2 are very finicky these days. Add Spybot with the wrong settings, and you might as well use you pc to just gatehr dust.

So, I'd like to ask a few questions.

First, please be more specific, such as _which_ settings are causing trouble, and exactly what sort of trouble will convert my workstation into a dust bunny breeding colony. I would like to play with them (both the settings & the dust bunnies); maybe even send in a bug report to SpyBot.

Everybody, please post a fast response on what ant-spyware programs you use. Just the name/names & OS & web browsers you use. I would very much like to hear recommendations for or against using certain of these (especially freeware) programs. If you want to take another minute, please evaluate specific problems &/or work-arounds.

For example:

I use AdAware SE 1.05, SpyBot 1.3 & have experimented with SpyWare Blaster. On 12 computer systems (personal workstations), I run/otherwise maintain Wn 98SE, 2000 pro & XP SP1 & SP2. Browsers are fuilly patched IE6 SP1, mozilla 1.7.*, Firebird 1, Opera 7.5.*.

The only problem identified with statcounter.com is with AdAware SE 1.05, on Win2K & Win 98 (so far), which identifies statcounter cookies as spyware, tracking cookies that are data miners.

I, of course, ignore this since I know a little bit about the who & why regarding statcounter. But anyone visiting my site does not. I dearly wish not to scare my customers from my site by having my site (i.e., the webcounter I use) ''install spyware,'' the perception I would reasonably expect when a trusted, mainstream & popular software flags it.

Why is statcounter getting flagged when others are not?

How do we fix this?

Thanks !

[webado]

Well, here's something on this: http://computercops.biz/article5354.html

Unfortunately in order to view some of the Lavasoft forum topics you have to be registered and logged in.

Basically it shows that Lavasfot, makers of AdAware, maintain a list of what they consider site that produce dataminer cookies. It apparently isn't a sophisticated algorithm at all that guesses at the nature of a cookie, just a list match. It seems that sites that feel wronged can apply to Lavasoft for exclusion from this list. Or so I understand it.

Apparently this thing works pretty much like SpamCop does for email. A user can just report something as spam to SpamCop and that sender's IP address gets blacklisted for a set period of time. It's tough to get off the list once on it it seems. Email clients or servers that use SpamCop can just blacklist anybody and anything, rightfully or wrongly. The blacklist entries are usually for a short time, but I think multiple reinclusions may result in a permanent blacklisting.

Not sure if Lavasoft works quite the same way, but this is suggested.

Now I've been looking at Spybot's settings and I've not yet seen where Statcounetr may be present so perhaps it doesn't get picked up there. Unless of course people subscribe to additional banned hosts files (maybe Spywareblaster ahs somehting to do with this, it rings a bell). The problem may lie deeper in XP's firewall settings and whatever algorithm that uses, if this is where it comes from.

The one thing I've noticed lately with AdAware is that even though I identify the Statcounter cookies for placement on the ignore list, they keep coming back at each scan. Not sure why this is so, and it's only been happening with the latest AdAware version I installed.

But I am wondering if perhaps the cookie isn't wrongly identified as a third party cookie rather than a cookie for the site itself that uses Statcounter, though created by the Statcounter code. Maybe that's the problem. I don't know enough about cookies to be all that coherent about them, sorry.

[robinev]

To answer a few of the questions posed:

I use Ad-Aware SE Personal and run a manual scan every couple of weeks. I usually get about 30 cookies flagged by it, and most of those from media sites that use the cookies for their ad displays.

I've also (as discussed in another topic) installed Microsoft's beta of their new AntiSpyware product. It found portions of two key loggers on its first two scans, which surprised me, but pleased me.

Microsoft's product doesn't flag any of the cookies that Ad-Aware regularly objects to. I regard that as a good thing since I think that Ad-Aware is far too paranoid about tracking cookies, but I'm comfortable deleting the things on only an occasional basis.

My guess is that an email from StatCounter to LavaSoft asking them for advice would be helpful. They might be willing to say what they find objectionable about the cookie, but they might not be willing to do anything about it. They don't seem to like anything that hints of tracking even if it is innocuous.

Maybe it's the "ebBurstingTime" in the cookie that they find suspect. Dunno.

[webado]

Originally Posted by robinev

Maybe it's the "ebBurstingTime" in the cookie that they find suspect. Dunno.

What's ebBurstingTime????

[robinev]

Originally Posted by chrisooc

What's ebBurstingTime????

I have no idea, but it's in the my?.StatCounter.com cookie in clear text.

[webado]

Oooooh! maybe that's the expiry date ....

[motorwatchercounter]

Why an .exe file?

[motorwatchercounter]

Yep, OK. If you say so. Obviously something I will never read.

A list in an .exe file? Yawn.

[webado]

Brynn - a lot of the developers of those tools unfortunately want to show results mroe than anything else. The more thet block the betetr it makes them lok in the eyes of the public - until somebody realises that some fo the sites getting blocked are or should be fully accessible.

To make a long winded story a bit shorter: with highest security settings any site that creates cookies gets blocked, regardles fo the nature of the cookies. This can be overridden manually. But it's quute game to figure out all the optimal settings. On my W2K afte rI sett all thsoe things I have to close the browser and restart it for the differences to be picked up, otherwise I can try until I'm blue in the face to unlock a site and it won't show up unblocked. I think this is the latest security patch from MS that's messed this up royally.

So the trouble is that the vast majority of people don't go through this exercise so they endure whatever consequences there may be. Either thy can't access sites, or they are constantly flagged with the privacy flag. A real pain.

[webado]

I don't know why you say you're getting a bunch of Statcounter cookies. I only have one from the forum and one from my admin account. The other cookies are created by the sites that I manage that use statcounter, once per site basically. The cookie is identified with my site's name, not Statcounter. Statcounter reference may be inside the cookie though.

Now the notion behind these cokies is that only the sites that created them can read them and/or modify then, not any others. At least this is the theory and my understanding. Otherwise we'd be more vulnerable than we already are.

I run adaware every day usually and it picks up one Statcounter cookie - that would be my admin cookie. This does puzzle me since I have long placed it in the ignore list, and it shouldn't be picked up again. I think it may be because the cookie somehow changes - I did notice it has a hit counter next to it, so maybe to Adaware it looks different from the cookie I've placed in the ignore list. Incidentally this has only been happening since I've upgraded to Adaware 1.5 SE - maybe it's a bug they have with this kind of cookie. I've long given up trying to understand what they do and how they do it.

I've stopped using Spywareblaster since it was causing lots of problems and blocking me from just about everything. I left in place Spybot and it prompts rather than block outright.

Touch wood, things run better and I seem to be ok virus-wise. I run scans every day and additional ones every so often, from a couple of on-line services.