Well, it *is* a pretty good reason. If you store any logs and are a high-profile source of public information and those logs can in any way be linked back to a specific user, then you must assume that sooner or later someone may take you to court to get access to those logs. Suppose a "person of interest" has been reading Wikipedia information on the chemistry of explosives, or reading up on biological pathogens, or military installations, etc etc etc. That is exactly the kind of thing that certain areas of law enforcement would like to know, and be able to use against people in court. Before you say "conspiracy theory!", remember that Google has this problem (for searches that people have conducted, which it does record), and libraries have this problem (for books that people have borrowed, which libraries also record). I'm actually surprised that the Wikipedia has not had this problem yet, and I can only presume that it's because there are no logs. The single easiest way to avoid the problem is to not keep any logs (besides those which are already public, such as the edit histories). There's a counterargument that some of these people may really be evil, but the reality is that the databases are located in the US, and the current US government has repeatedly demonstrated a thorough contempt for civil liberties (fingerprinting foreign nationals entering the US as though they were criminals, arresting people wearing T-shirts with protest slogans, illegal wire taps, indefinite imprisonment without due process at Guantanamo, the practise of "rendition", arresting people photographing bridges, and the list of abuses goes on and on and on). For my 2 cents, concern over legal problems & potential abuse of the data far outweighs my desire to know how many people have viewed say the "Mickey Mouse" page. All the best, Nick.