Yes. Google damn well knows that no major web browser sends the #hashmark part of the URL in the referrer. They damn well know this breaks every single analytics package out there.
"I don't know how they're gonna do it, but...but...they're bad...'cause they're gonna hurt competition, so they'll find some way of not hurting themselves, they have to!"
Besides, the hashmark is a standard of its own when it comes to Ajax applications. Google isn't doing anything suspiciously new with that.
Yes it's a side effect, but it's ridiculous to say that was the intent of the change.