Tracking RSS annoyances

I'm starting to see a trend in syndication feeds that I don't much care for - the inclusion of 1x1 pixel graphics in each item. The theory being to find out how many people are actually reading the items, I suppose. Meanwhile, it adds an extra - and of absolutely no value to the end viewer - http fetch to each item viewing. It's getting to be enough to tempt me to take BottomFeeder offline before reading news.