Without the full info hash, they can probably keep lawyers away. Unlike BTDigg. You are one step away from the hash anyway, there are other online and offline databases.

https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/

The protocol was only ever intended to be distributed, not anonymous. Simple logic will tell you that blindly connecting your raw IP to random other IPs is not an anonymous function, regardless of the protocol.

You can, of course, take steps to increase anonymity while using most any protocol.

>Will this make it easier for ISPs to penalize their irresponsible customers?

Only if they (the ISP) are so irresponsible as to have not noticed a decade ago that such monitoring was already possible.

ISPs don't care, except for the ones owned by movie companies (a lot of US ones).

a) This is not hard evidence, even though it is mostly correct.

b) ISPs do not need to rely on some random server on the other side of the world watching a tiny amount of requests, they see the user traffic directly.

c) ISPs do not have the legal authority to investigate or penalise anyone, or even peek into private communication.

d) As we all know, c) is just a show, and governments and corporations routinely offer helpful services to each other under fake legal covers and self-lobbied decrees that make both sides seemingly not responsible for anything.