Check out ITsafe — a government funded website that — according to its homepage provides ‘home users and small businesses with warnings and news about computer security problems. ITsafe is a free UK government service.’

I’ve previously pointed out how lame this nameless and faceless site looks. It probably also (poorly) replicates other computer security services provided by firms such as Secunia. Actually, it looks to me like the site also replicates the automatic software update warnings you get from Microsoft Windows or Mac OS-X.

Well, I recently submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request to learn how much web traffic ITsafe gets and how much the taxpayers pay for this service. I received a response to my FOI request yesterday.

The answers: Well, let’s just say that ITsafe is probably not reaching a significant percentage of the millions of UK residents who use the internet every day. According to the information I received, ITsafe receives about 100 unique visitors per day — about 3000 per month. In April 2007, for example, ITsafe received 2514 unique visitors. It’s been a fairly consistent amount of traffic since January 2006, although I suppose some additional number of people receive email updates and do not visit the site directly.

And the cost to the taxpayer? That’s secret. ITsafe claimed an exemption pursuant to Section No. 23 of the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, that’s right, the exemption related to embarrassing government IT projects the security services.

I’m just guessing the cost isn’t worth it…