In the past few months, a proliferation of “sponsored” themes has arisen. This seemed to me out of keeping with the open source intent of WordPress, and I wouldn’t download one out of principal even if there was one I thought worth it. (which most aren’t)
At the very least though, most of these themes require little editing to take out the “sponsorship”.
While reading the WordPress forums, I saw this thread wherein a poster finds an unintelligible code in his theme footer.
Turns out this code allows the theme “sponsor” to track stats on YOUR blog. This is an invasion of your blog privacy as well as a potential security risk.
For some time there has been discussion as to whether or not these types of themes should be allowed on the “official” theme site. Hopefully, this will put a higher priority on the subject and it will be ruled that they are not to be hosted at the ThemeViewer site
For more detailed information, read here.
Remember to check your theme files!
Here are some of the themes involved
http://themes.wordpress.net/other/right-sidebar/3954/mobilemagic-10/
http://themes.wordpress.net/other/widget-ready/4090/portable-magic-10/
http://themes.wordpress.net/other/widget-ready/4057/classical-1-10/
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