alt Hacker NewsOh, I have a couple - the users did not agree on being tracked (these query params are tracking information), and the site administrator does not want incoming traffic to be tracked. I know the latter can be hard to understand, but I for example sure as hell do not want to have any info in my logs that can be used to harm my users.
On a more personal note, I hate it when I go to copy a link to send via a message, and the tracking code glued onto it is twice as long as original URL... I either have to fiddle around with it to clean it up or leave the person I sent it to to wonder wtf am I on about with a screenful of random characters...
So it's violating users' privacy, it's shit UX, and on top of that, nobody asked for it...
>(these query params are tracking information)
Query strings are useful for way more than just tracking. Saving and servicing search queries is a way more common use case. So assuming it's only useful for tracking is very misleading.
Query strings are probably the least invasive tracking. They are transparent, obvious, and anonymous. Users are free to strip out and edit query strings if they don't want them.
More to the point, I can essentially do the same thing with HTTP routing - create an infinite number of unique URLs for tracking purposes. In that regard calling out query strings specifically for essentially the same thing but more transparently seems like splitting hairs.