Yes, this is true.

But: (1) the number of parties that only use site specific trackers is relatively small to the number of parties that use networks, (2) even those parties usually carry facebook/google and other embedded resources, effectively still leaking your data and (3) in the end, you can't be sure that they don't combine that data on the backside with data procured elsewhere.

I'm not sure whether we're talking about the same thing, but plenty of the web is people running sites tracking analytics on sites that have nothing to do with ads. Of those, Google Analytics would be the most common, and yes, Google is in the ads business.

But there are numerous services that provide analytics and have no part in tracking you elsewhere. Is Mailchimp involved in cookie trading? Segment? Intercom? Mixpanel? To my knowledge, no, there is nothing there -- they only know you via session cookies in the browser, and those businesses do not make data available to third-party ad networks.

Even in cases where they do bring in data, such as Intercom using FullContact to merge an email address with social data from Twitter, it's a one-way API call from Intercom, with nothing identifying the actual sites that will make use of it.

I 100% agree with you on trackers/beacons like "Scorecard Research", and to a lesser extent, Google Analytics, but "you can't be sure" seems like weak ground on which to take a strong categorical stance against any use of analytics tracking. There are real differences to the value they provide and the ability they have to do beyond that even if the incentives are there.

Well, the 'you can't be sure' in practice translates into 'everybody does it' but I'd rather leave enough room for those that do not engage in these practices. Absolutes simply don't cut it.

And the 'value they provide' is never provided to the users, always to their clients at the expense of those users.