End of anonymity

This is a bit coincidental. I was having a discussion with my friend Gilles over dinner about how companies like Google had amassed so much information on all of us by now, that it would soon be possible for these bodies to string our web accesses, thousand unremembered posts, and profiles together into a pretty comprehensive portrait of who we are, what we value, what we believe, what we want to buy. Not a very ground breaking thought, admittedly, but I wasn't expecting a proof-of-concept within 24-hours - witness: Google's blogsearch.

Now I'm not exactly paranoid, but I do equate anonymity and privacy, and so my Blogger profile is only privilege to my first name, and even that isn't listed in my profile. Google operates both Blogger and, significantly, my Gmail account. Which means they know my name. Which means if you can blogsearch my name, you'll find my blog.