The counter doesn't have to be private, but being able to view exactly what one person has starred should have a privacy control. We do this at MusicBrainz with

The counter doesn't have to be private, but being able to view exactly what one person has starred should have a privacy control. We do this at MusicBrainz with 'subscriptions' (to be notified when something changes). We give a number of subscribers, and those with public subscriptions are explicitly listed: http://musicbrainz.org/artist/10adbe5e-a2c0-4bf3-8249-2b4cbf6e6ca8/subscribers http://musicbrainz.org/artist/10adbe5e-a2c0-4bf3-8249-2b4cbf...