[vannapk]

Hi: I have my own website hosted by yahoo (paid, not geocities) and I try to review all my referring sites weekly to protect against graphic and or bandwidth theft. As I was going through the site today I noticed a strange referral that seemed suspicious to me, it says "NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!". What do the experts here say? Should I be concerned? Is it graphics theft? If not, what is it? I noticed this referrer on several of my pages. Please advise...
TIA
vannapk

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It is possible to hide the referring URL on the browser side, which is how most web stats are generated. Most browsers can be configured to say something other than where they're coming from, though this is very far from obvious how to do it.

Nowt to worry about, not a lot you can do anyway about it. The user in question has set his system up like that, and will go round inadvertedly (or not as the case may be) planting this message in many other server logs across the internet.

[Neil Jones]

It is possible to hide the referring URL on the browser side, which is how most web stats are generated. Most browsers can be configured to say something other than where they're coming from, though this is very far from obvious how to do it.

Nowt to worry about, not a lot you can do anyway about it. The user in question has set his system up like that, and will go round inadvertedly (or not as the case may be) planting this message in many other server logs across the internet.

[Johanna]

Just a comment- if you put anything up on the net, you have to realize it can be "stolen". You can reduce the chances by disabling the right click, using watermarks, etc but if someone like me wants what you have up, I can get around your tricks. If the material is very sensitive, you might want to use a log in to a password protected area and only let your invited guests view your images.

As far as referral cookies go, I like them as a webmaster, because they tell me which sites are sending traffic to mine, but I block them from my own computer because. like your visitor pointed out, it's nobody's business. I use AdSubtract which shows up as "referral cookie blocked by AdSubtract" on stat sheets.

Just food for thought.
Johanna