Bad SiteMeter... bad, bad, bad.

I was looking for connection errors on my blog and noticed something that didn't make any sense to me.  A mysterious call to dg.specificclick.net was being made.

What?!  I don't recall adding this link to my blog so I started looking through my source files.  I finally found the guilty code by looking at IE's "View Generated Code" option:

It turns out that SiteMeter is adding this to my site via an IFRAME tag.  A quick search on Google and I found the following blurp about this "feature":

Specificclick cookies store information about a PC user’s interaction with a specific website. Standard Cookies are not inherently dangerous, but they can be misused and exploited and may allow a distinct and apparently unrelated website to access the same information. If more than one website can access a cookie that has been placed on the user’s PC, that cookie poses a security and privacy risk. Tracking cookies can allow vendors to analyze browsing behavior for marketing purposes.

A couple of good articles about specificclick.net can be found on TenthOfMarch.com and on Michaelsync.net.

Based on my reading I have immediately removed SiteMeter from my blog.  Do your own research but my recommendation is to go with another tracking provider that doesn't try to track your activities.