> Given two solutions with equal potential for abuse, why not pick the technically superior solution?

Straw man. You're presupposing the existence of 'ping'. The argument is why, given an observation that web features X and Y are being used to implement contentious function Z, would you want to implement a brand new, even more insidious, web feature, designed solely for doing Z, in the first place? Technical superiority of the new implementation of Z is not in dispute.

> they already know which you click on.

I'm pretty confident that they don't in my case.