Pseudonymous is probably correcter/correctest....
Big data collection can make profiles of these pseudonyms and use them, while artificial intelligence can extrapolate and interpret them deeper. I don't use g$$gl€, but it uses me.
AI is becoming a mighty tool, we only experience the tip of the iceberg (yeah, some icebergs are growing)....
I'm scared of the negative uses I know are already possible/used. Influencing politics/elections is one, already used all the time.
Negative use of health information of people could be used to influence insurance coverage or job chances. Even pseudonymously AI could influence insurance costs or what kinds of treatment is worth paying for or what kind of fibromites generally can manage which kind of work, stuff like that anyway.
So the mailing lists in the 90s & 00s were much more private. But extremely cumbersome and ineffective.
So as
@Jemima says not only do forums help us members, they help a lot more external people reading them.
That way this is contributing to the positive use of big data collection, sharing what works best at grass roots.
Only studies based on AI will probably in 10-20y help crack tough nuts like fibro. Praps using what we are writing here now.
Comparing forums: Some are technically able to let you decide if your post is private or public, depending on the topic.
That kind of technical ability makes them more expensive, meaning more funding, financial pressure - who'll pay?
Comparing forums to other media: AI can make much more out of the often un-pseudonymous social media.
So that's where people should be much more careful than they are. Not just for Big Data, just for easy searches.
I only let on what I work as or what gender my grandchild has in private mails, probably a futile attempt to hide...
But apart from that I keep away from g$$gl€ etc. as much as possible, because that makes them able to connect my pseudonymous forum-profile (I can't avoid that) to my searches which can connect to my machines and me personally (I can).
I also make sure no one I don't trust gets hold of my profile name, altho it'd be easy to find me as a "Ger-man in New York".
But I'm not actually scared of real people, it's the big machines...
So anyone who's read this far: Now you know why I talk about
anonymous search engines,
better European ones like startmail, than American ones like duckduckgo (and anonymous browsers like TOR).
And
@IcePonyGirl: If you use the search engine you're talking about yourself, maybe think again, if that's an issue...