Adam Engst, publisher of TidBITS here... Thanks for noticing that Smile is sponsoring TidBITS. As you note, the sponsorship is unique to our site, and uses entirely internal systems for display, so there are no trackers or the like. Smile chose to do their URL via a URL shortener, so I don't know what could be determined if you click it, but it's not loading any code merely by viewing it. The trackers the other commenter saw are due to the graphical ads and affiliate link generators we also have on the page.
Two random facts to note. First, as far as I know, TidBITS did the first sponsorship program for Internet content back in 1992. If that was in any way responsible for what Internet advertising has become, I apologize. :-) Since we believe in archival content, you can read that article at http://tidbits.com/article/2995
Second, our primary source of revenue is voluntary memberships. We also make about $5K per year from graphical ads, and in last year's membership drive, I challenged the 90% of our readers who are not members to join, promising that we'd drop the graphical ads and affiliate link generators if we could raise another $5K. Alas, the challenge fell short. http://tidbits.com/article/16234
Two random facts to note. First, as far as I know, TidBITS did the first sponsorship program for Internet content back in 1992. If that was in any way responsible for what Internet advertising has become, I apologize. :-) Since we believe in archival content, you can read that article at http://tidbits.com/article/2995
Second, our primary source of revenue is voluntary memberships. We also make about $5K per year from graphical ads, and in last year's membership drive, I challenged the 90% of our readers who are not members to join, promising that we'd drop the graphical ads and affiliate link generators if we could raise another $5K. Alas, the challenge fell short. http://tidbits.com/article/16234