So they are just like all the other tracking and analytics products like toolbars & alexa with the added advantage of having no restrictions on what details you

So they are just like all the other tracking and analytics products like toolbars & alexa with the added advantage of having no restrictions on what details you sell on (after all, it's all public) and that it is directly identifiable (since that is all publicly available as well). And people want to sign up for services like this because they can brag about something like their sitescore(tm)? "The Sitescore reveals the web's real trailblazers. get points for discovering and spreading cool new things online." I understand that I'm in the minority here, but I just don't get it. EDIT: Also isn't this a rather poor value proposition? I click on a fair amount of poor content that I wouldn't recommend. I'm fairly sure that in my youtube lifetime more than 50% of the videos I've seen would get a "I would not recommend this video to anyone" checkbox filled in. It doesn't sound like any of these services can differentiate a bit between a link bait blackhat SEO autoblog I bounce from in 120ms and a deep paper that changes my outlook on life. This is why all the other services have voting... If adwords tricks 6 of my friends into clicking on an ad for a for profit college is that prima facie evidence that I would like to click on it as well? What did mom say about jumping off a bridge?