@David Coveney -

The article on interconnect/it that you link to, What Exactly Does WordPress Tell The World? describes the concerns/motivations, and the particulars of the technical tests selected to investigate those questions, very well.

The website itself, it's homepage, has more in this general vein.

Those who provide services to 'non-IT' businesses, who want to use IT but are not especially 'into' IT themselves, are both somewhat obliged and so-to-speak 'given permission' to leave behind a lot of the usual 'postures & dance' of Computerdom, which themselves can be persistent issues.

I am not a business-person, and am not into IT business-services, but I am an experienced technical/systems person, and the way these tests were set up & described in the article is very good.

Thanks!