This way it's ruined for everybody, and they get nothing in return, except for some HN points on their blog post.
There was no real-world case where this data was useful in a non-creepy way.
That doesn't make it acceptable in any way.
I'd prefer that it was. This is clearly something that leaks personal information.
And, you know, some increased measure of privacy.
For some odd reason people seem to be concerned about all the private data they (willingly) give to these corporations leaking outside of the corporation proper as if it's a violation of their (misplaced) trust or something. Lots of that going around recently for...reasons.