> Presumably, the most common search preference lists would be used by very large numbers of people

the more anonymous among us tend to opt for common IP addresses and common user agents to become the tree among the forest. adding a profile to that would, well, only add to a digital fingerprinting profile

> those preferences don't need to be attached to you, just your query

that's not how it works. preferences are by their nature personal. every transaction would have your interests and hobbies embedded, on top of metadata

> mit_cs_club, studioghiblifans_new, britains_best_baking_prefs, AlpineMountaineersIntl

you have voluntarily made yourself the birch among the ebony

> If you're especially paranoid you could even throw in a bunch of random preferences that don't affect your query but do throw off attempts to profile you

how would they not affect the query? they complement the query. or rather, unnecessarily accompany the query. your results depend on your input. it doesn't matter what colour glove you wear to pull the trigger if you bury the gun with the body

> write a script that salts every search with a few extra random preference lists, for privacy or just for fun

just the latter. fuzzing would be pointless since the engine will have already identified you by now

it sounds like an annoying browser extension at best. to label it a pro-privacy tool would be ludicrous