It’s Google analytics, and the meta/twitter/etc tracking pixels. Almost every site uses them because they provide useful data to the site owner and they are free.
the images in OPs post appear to be designed to match their site theme, meaning umatrix wouldn’t even block them, because they are being served from the sites actual domain/CDN and not from Facebook/Google’s tracking domain.
The buttons don’t do any tracking just from existing. They only exist to encourage a miniscule number of people to repost your content on social media, and in the event a share comes from that, they may include affiliate info
All the useful information comes from the tracking scripts, which developers are also placing themselves because they are infinitely more useful. They tell you where visitors are coming from, how/if they are converting, everything they are viewing/interacting with on your site, and what the ROI of your ad spend is. In addition to telling you if someone clicked the share button.
Tracking pixels have been decoupled from the “share” buttons for at least 10-15 years
Just loading the “share” icon from the social media website allows them to see that you are reading that specific article
The buttons aren’t necessary for this though. They can do that with a <script> tag, or a hidden 1x1 pixel <img>
It’s the best time I’ve had with a game since BG3 - gameplay is ‘just’ good, but the story and design are next level