Nobody is suggesting we abolish analytics as a practice, but it's misrepresenting the issues to suggest that content providers will die a sad death if they lose out on whatever benefits those querystring params provide.

Content providers already have feedburner for rss metrics (also, now by google) not to mention google analytics (nee urchintracker) and good ol' fashioned server access logs (which you can analyze with urchin proper (or mint, or what have you)).

I can see from a gut-reaction standpoint how you could write what you did, but aside from gawker (who notoriously uses analytics, c.f.[1]), how many legitimate content providers use analytics as anything other than a rough barometer for trends? The problems you describe are problematic for certain types of tabloid publishers (drudge report, ny post, etc.), but they are hardly addressed by a handful of querystring parameters.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_...