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Uh no. I can't find it now, but there was a famous incident a long time ago (~2005?) where a major chat service (AIM?) released "anonymized" logs for research purposes and people were able to deanonymize some of them.

Consider how easily people get doxed based on tiny shreds of information they post.

That's an argument for why the OP is right that it's not anonymous enough, not that it's become the common practice not to regard these as anonymous.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak

Ah right, it was search logs, not chat logs. I think chat logs would be even harder to fully anonymize.

Really? I'm pretty sure it's common to consider a conversation transcript anonymous as long as the names are stripped.

There was a story on HN in the last few days where just one side of chats with a home assistant device was enough to identify the person, his S.O., and their friends.

Think of the simple counter example of a user mentioning another user's name within one of the messages.

>> as long as the names are stripped.

Including usernames that could de-anonymize.