DNS queries are recursive. If the query can't be answered at the first DNS server contacted - normally a close one, your own or your ISP's - it goes up the hierarchy. Generally the DNS server of the domain itself is authoritative, but large numbers of queries go to the root servers all the time when other sources don't have the info.
This is not like advertising where you can just black-hole servers of unwanted junk. DNS needs to work in this tree model. But it's not a privacy issue; they're not going to detect that Joe Schmoe is looking up weasel fetish sites or whatever.
You are correct that lookups are recursive. However, the recursion is typically done by your ISP's DNS servers and not by the end-user system. It doesn't affect you unless you are running your own DNS server, or are manually doing recursion (via a command line lookup, such as using the "+trace" flag in "dig".
Right, thanks for making that clear. My point for the OP was that there's no way to opt out of this data-collection. You would normally never hit the root servers directly, and nothing you could do locally could prevent the servers you send queries to from consulting them when needed.
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