They're also running some javascript that pings a tracking server every 10 seconds you're on the site. If you have Firebug installed, you can watch it go on the net tab.

Sounds like you guys need to install ghostery (a Firefox anti-tracking plugin) http://news.ghostery.com/

Though it blocked 6 of the 7 different tracking scripts on that page, it didn't seem to kill the Javascript one. (I have whitelisted Google Analytics)

If the reviews are to be believed, Ghostery has been sold to an advertising company and may be functioning as spyware

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9609

From the Ghostery/Better Advertising Privacy Policy- "We collect user traffic patterns"; "we track click-through information, including IP addresses"; "We may place a text file called a 'cookie' in the browser files of your computer."; "We may provide personal information to or permit access to personal information by our vendors and service providers"; "If Better Advertising should ever file for bankruptcy or have its assets sold to or merged with another entity, information Better Advertising receives from you, from this website, is a Better Advertising asset and may be transferred."

I just add them all to my hosts file I don't see the need for anything additional. I think I may have adblockplus installed. I was reading the top article now the one about firefox and h.264 and saw a lot of net hits for disqus, so I added that to my hosts file too and wow, does the page ever load faster.

is this needed even with adblockplus? [edit - adblock doesn't stop the js pings with the default us subscription] [edit2 - or with an explicit listing; i ended up blocking them via dns] [edit3 - no i didn't; firefox is ignoring my dns?! confused...]

I ended up installing this, which is pretty neat - http://www.requestpolicy.com/

firefox can't ignore dns. on windows, you have to do

   ipconfig /flushdns

to clear your dns cache, then restart firefox

i intend to look again this evening - i may well have made a mistake, but i couldn't understand what was happening (i am on linux, restarted firefox, and also restarted nscd; i didn't modify hosts, but did add a master record for the domain to my local network's name server - "host" and firefox were, apparently, inconsistent) (i was so surprised i went into the code and checked it was using a name and not a numerical address...)

http://readwriteweb.com.woopra-ns.com/ping/ cookie=7TJHFV2SOJLYOHJB639M6X41J97LGFW8&alias=readwriteweb.com& idle=22&ra=YHOOX4E81XHRKT8KVFHW0MPHJJ3L6Q0G

Woopra tracking how idle (amongst other things) you are on the page.