Re:You can already do this with Javascript (Score 1)

Ever heard of cross-site scripting? "ping" needs at the least to be implemented in such a fashion that only the originating site can get a ping.

Are you kidding me? The "ping" attribute is no more vulnerable to cross-site scripting than the "href" attribute itself.

Maybe we should just do away with hypertext to solve this dilemma. That's what it sounds like you're saying.