What is Metrics ?

To determine popularity of versions, features, and lingering usage, plugin installs are automatically tracked by the Metrics plugin tracking system

Ok, but what exactly is read/sent?
It is not possible for Metrics to control the plugin in any way except for plugin-specific code the plugin author implements. As mentioned before, nothing is downloaded, so what you get is what the plugin author implemented.

The following data is read from the server in some way or another:
File Contents of plugins/Plugin Metrics/config.yml (created if not existent)
Players currently online (not max player count)
Server version string (the same version string you see in /version)
Plugin version of the metrics-supported plugin
Mineshafter status - it does not properly propagate Metrics requests however it is a very simple check and does not read the filesystem

The following data is sent to http://mcstats.org

How to disable ?
Edit plugins/PluginMetrics/config.yml and set opt-out to true.

The results we get:
http://api.mcstats.org/signature/Spouties.png