

Hmmh. I have uBlock and LocalCDN installed in my browser because I’m more worried about all the Google and Metas out there. Most of the news articles linked here are on websites with like 3 different trackers. And Google and Meta definitely have enough info about everyone to correlate minor details.
I must say I’m not super worried about my IP leaking into the Fediverse. I mean the pictures as a direct message is yet another thing. But generally speaking, we have some trade-off here between privacy and spreading information across a distributed network. It’s not a good thing, but I think the benefits outweigh the downsides.
Though, I seriously doubt it’s a legitimate study. Standards dictate you’d do it with people’s consent and inform them what’s up. You’d get scolded by your professor if you did it like this. And I believe we do studies without explicit consent, but that’s university level stuff and I suppose you’d have to file a request with the ethics committee and have someone look at the study layout. I’d say if it is a “study”, it’s probably illegitimate and done by someone without much academic background. Or they don’t abide by the same standards all students do for specific reasons.