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We're picturing a meeting of Conde Nast web executives going something like this: "Hey, so there's this cool new technology called email direct marketing, where you email a shitload of people and some of them respond and go to your website!" And then someone else says, "Yeah, and there's another thing you can do with the Internet, which is buy these cool pop-up ads that people can't shut down, and they count as links to our sites!" Or something like that.

Well, you can rest easy, because Conde Nast—as well as ForbesAutos.com and Heavy.com—used this dubious method of counting web traffic on their Concierge.com site, and got totally busted by the web police! Turns out the old pop-up counter method of tracking web traffic not only isn't kosher, but is also a bit, shall we say, downmarket:

This list of sites surprised Scott Symonds, vice president for media at Agency.com, who advises companies on where to spend their online advertising budgets. Pop-ups delivered by adware are usually seen as a "nuisance form of advertising," and most mainstream publishers avoid them, he said.

"You would hope that publishers of high-quality content would use advertising techniques that were in keeping with that," Mr. Symonds said.

Let's hope the relaunch of Vanity Fair online isn't plagued with such troubles.

In Web Traffic Tallies, Intruders Can Say You Visited Them [NYT]