In reply to Tom Morton's point about privacy - the exposure is no more (and as we now know, considerably less) than we experience every time we visit any other site on the 'net.
No... because the banner sent your WP username as part of the link - if I visit any other site in the world they get my IP. If I visited *that* link they get my WP username as well.
I think the major objection there was that it was not clear that this is what was happening till *after* you clicked the link.
As you say this is no longer a concern - but it was not explained before hand. And till the point that it was it was a reasonable objection; the takeaway being that "next time" it should be explained before to set peoples minds at rest :)
people who use Wikipedia (or a very small number of other sites where
they can be familiar with disclosure policies) exclusively, and they were somehow surprised that the banner took them to an external site (despite the URL being available via float)... Then those people might have a legitimate privacy complaint.
This was not the issue raised; or at the very little trivialises the main point of objection in favour of the obviously unproblematic.
I've been involved extensively in issues of privacy and subterfuge for several years now, as a by product of my work. Although my own view is that open=good (hence, my real name, location etc.) many many people are confused by privacy and upset by the idea of certain things being tracked or discovered. I think that we too much trivialise those concerns as "uninformed" - without understanding that we simply add to the problem *by not being informative ourselves.*
Or to put it another way; the correct response here is not to go "oh your being silly, would you like a tin foil hat" but to give the rational explanation that makes someone not-concerned :)
Tom