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The important point is that just renting out the movies isn't enough to reveal your identity, you also have to review them (anonymously) on IMDB or some such site. So the solution is simple: If you rent a movie that you would object to being listed in, e.g. your public Facebook profile just don't review it. Is this so hard?

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That's incorrect. His public Star Wars reviews linked him to the Michael Moore's rentals he wished to remain private.

You're right. How about no public reviews on IMDB then? Or create another different users? I rent many movies from Netflix that people would find "objectionable", this is one reason I don't create any public reviews.

This would require me to figure out in advance what public data links me to what private-but-anonymized data. We know about the IMDB-Netflix connection because it was pointed out after the fact. What other links are there that I can't predict? What if I can be identified by which nights I stay home to watch a movie? Generalizing, the problem with anonymized data sets is that it is very, VERY hard to say with confidence that the data cannot be connected to a client.

That kind of data should not be released without consent.

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