Annnnnnd … that FAQ article is not correct. The “Hide My Profile” option mentioned cannot be found on their site in relationship to your account profile.
Also, they lead you to believe that you can control which web sites have access to your account, but that only seems to apply if you can hide your account …
If you happen to use Gmail, you can create a unique address that goes to your address with a +. You can use this technique to customize your avatar for specific locations. It’s also a great way to track down where spam came from.
For example, if your email address is tim@gmail.com then you can use tim+xojo@gmail.com in both Gravatar and the forum to get the forum software to display a unique Gravatar.
D’oh! I’m such a schmuk! I totally didn’t see that that was a link. This is where UX design fails - when most click targets are “buttons” and a few are highlighted links.
Thanks Julian and Tim for the kicks in the right direction.