[cynest]

But is that truly de-anonymizing? I share my legal name with several famous people, and numerous SEO'd professionals. Barring more specific searching knowing specific details I am relatively hard to identify. Same with just about anyone who fits the (common first name, common last name) paradigm. On the other hand (rare first name, rarer last name) is relatively easy to uniquely identify.

[michael_miller]

For most purposes, it is de-anonymizing. There might be several famous people who share your name, but is there more than one person with your name who is currently an undergrad at Caltech studying CS? In most cases, a name combined with a little bit of context will identify an individual.

[vidarh]

The difference, for me at least, is effort.

There's a vast difference from if people can do a search for your name, and get page up and page down of stuff from every forum you might post on, vs. if people need to track down your nym's.

In my case, my HN id is trivially easy to connect to my full name, but unless you go to the effort, these comments won't show up.

My Reddit comments are still easy to connect to my full name if you try, but it does not reflect my name directly, and it will take more searches for most people. I don't care if people who know me figure it out - I've e.g. often made clear statements that identify me in comments there, by e.g. replying in threads when posts from my blog has been posted there. I don't care if the odd person here and there make the connection, with or without my help.

I don't care if people who care enough to put effort into figuring out the connections figure it out (though I'd find it rather creepy if someone thought that worthwhile) - they'd find other avenues to get information about me anyway.

But I do somewhat care that off-hand comments I make that are more like a casual chat than a serious debate or public statement does not end up ranking at the top of a Google search for my name.

I "curate" my online life that way, by deciding what I post and what usernames I use, depending on how much or little I care about tying a specific service to my public identity.