[noisy_boy]

Sometimes I don't understand what advertisers mean when they keep reassuring that all the data they suck is totally anonymized with the objective of delivering more personalized and relevant ads. How can it be personalized if you can't pick me out of the anonymized lot? If you can, then what good is the anonymity? Probably its me who just doesn't get it.

[ric2b]

I know your HN username is "noisy_boy", I can track your HN posts/comments but I have no idea who you are, where you live, etc.

That's how anonymized data _can_ work. Of course it's also easy to mess that up and leak data about the underlying person.