This idea that there are no real concerns about losses of anonymity is to me very odd. Its odd, because its obvious that the information is valuable, and the possibility for abuse is almost unlimited.
To point to a few of them, what if, if ever time you drive to fast, your car insurance increased in costs? (already happened in sweden).
What if, if ever time you took a job interview, the company order up a complete review of your activities, actions done at party's, ups, downs, relationship, political affiliation, health status, friends and so on? (some do already, some dont't. Mostly US companies. Companies that do reviews exist but few except the military pay's them regularly).
What if, every time you bought a beer, your medical insurance company got a notice by the friendly credit company and thus added a dime to the premium? (Some credit companies do sell this information, but its not in real-time yet).
What if, at every election, you would have to attach your name to it (thankfully, I have yet to hear about a election like this. I would assume its because the output would be obviously and bad).
Anyway, the categorization of the autonomous vehicle as a 'geek toy' is wrong like you say. The opportunities for improving safety, lowering pollution and improving the traffic system is many.
Regarding the car insurance: This is happening to an extent in the US currently. There are several companies who offer discounted rates for attaching 'trackers' to your car that report your driving behavior back to the insurance company.
I have very real concerns that this will grow to becoming as mandatory as requiring seat belts while driving. I'm sort of mixed on this point because, while this is obviously a very real invasion of privacy, I also tend to drive safely, and wish that more people did. In short, I'm conflicted. That said, just as I am currently able to not use those insurance providers, I am able to blog anonymously from a variety of other sources. I don't have to blog on Google Plus if I don't want to, and I don't believe that we're in danger of any laws being put forth that require real names on every internet post everywhere. If there were, I'd agree that this is a more likely comparison than it is, but I feel it's somewhat contrived at the moment. Your argument is akin to requiring that you HAVE to blog about everything that you do, and is only a matter of whether or not it's received by troublesome parties. I still have the choice whether or not to blog about a given activity, and if I do blog about it, I have the choice of specifying who receives it (or making it altogether private).
Regarding the job interview, if that were the case for all the applicants, I'd probably fare well enough. It should be worth noting that I've opened my life to such intrusion before for a job with the federal government, but I understood that as a condition of employment. If all employers made this common practice, I agree it would be very troublesome.
Skipping a little bit, all of the examples you gave are basically those of invasions of privacy, which I don't feel fairly reflects the issue at hand. Nobody's forcing you to post things on G+ at all, but if you choose to publish something, it happens to be in your real name. Again, you can still restrict visibility, or choose not to post at all, or choose to post somewhere differently that allows anonymity/pseudonymity. As such, I feel your examples are all significantly different from my original point.
Nobody is forcing your to post on G+ or Facebook, but as large companies, their policies have ripple effects. If we accept what they do now, what will things be like in 10 years?
At least in the US, there was already political chatter about requiring everyone on the Internet to have trace-able identity, and maybe using FBConnect or Google logins to do that.
Regardless of your views, large companies implementing 'real name' social networks makes it closer to a reality. The closer we come to basically having a 'switch' that would allow politicians to turn on such functionality, the more likely it is for them to flip said switch.
The biggest issue I have with said trackers is that they don't allow for judgement calls. Recently for example I was travelling from Arizona back to my home in Colorado, and was on several single lane highways. The speed limit is set at 65 Mph, however you have some people that choose to drive under the speed limit at 60 Mph.
To pass those people you need to speed up, enter the opposite lane of travel, pass the person, then enter back into the correct lane of travel. While you are speeding up to pass the person you go above the allowed speed limit (generally somewhere around 80 Mph) to make sure that you don't stay in the opposite lane of travel to a head-on collision.
With one of those boxes your insurance could now consider you a dangerous driver since you were speeding, and could now ding you, when in reality you were simply passing a slower car.
You could now suggest that I just stay behind the slower car, but with no passing lane for the next 70 miles that would have added a not insignificant amount of time to my already lengthy travel time, and then I haven't even mentioned all of the RV's that are driving 50 Mph because they are dragging a car behind them.
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Safe driving has to be evaluated some other way. I've been involved in only one accident, and I lost control of my car in an attempt to avoid an accident on icy roads and took out a lamp post. (A pick-up truck driver lost control over their vehicle and was sliding towards me while all four of his tires were locked up. My corrective action was an attempt to move out of the way ... ended up hitting a patch of ice instead, at which point I was no longer able to complete my manoeuvre). Even if I had that box in my car it wouldn't have had me driving any differently because I was already driving safely for the conditions present and that box wouldn't have made the difference.
The biggest issue that I have found here in the US (at least compared to Europe) is that it is too simple to get your drivers license, and you can get one at an age where you don't realise the full extent of what it means to control a 2000+ pound metal box at speed. Where you don't yet fully understand the consequences and what it means. Traffic schools/lessons in the US are a joke compared to the rigorous requirements set forth in most of Europe (I'm talking Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium as the ones I am familiar with).
Should insurance companies be able to offer such boxes to people if they want to take them? Maybe, I am still split on whether or not we should allow insurance companies to go down such a slope, because at some point it becomes too easy to then make it mandatory. I don't think such privacy invasion measures should ever be allowed to become mandatory.
I agree with everything you said. I'm not entirely sure if it was offered as a counterpoint to what I said, but if so, please know that it's just because I didn't get too deeply into it.
The pragmatist in me says that because passing on the left is often legal, surely they have some way to identify that, or at least accept it as a deviation from the mean which they would discard.
The cynic in me though believes it exactly as you suggested, that every time you break the speed limit gets added as a 'point' against your record, and enough points eventually causes your premiums to go up.
As a publishing forum, I agree that a real name policy has little effect. Sadly, I rarely see people use social network sites as a publishing forum, and more like a social space to hang around at. Its like a bar. technically, a bar is for drinking, but if bars only purpose was drinking, few would go there. An other example would be to compare Google+ and BBC opinion section. Both are technically the same thing, an publication forum. But beyond the technical viewpoint, they share nothing in common. If BBC opinion section would have a real name policy, I would not care that much.
To point to a few of them, what if, if ever time you drive to fast, your car insurance increased in costs? (already happened in sweden).
What if, if ever time you took a job interview, the company order up a complete review of your activities, actions done at party's, ups, downs, relationship, political affiliation, health status, friends and so on? (some do already, some dont't. Mostly US companies. Companies that do reviews exist but few except the military pay's them regularly).
What if, every time you bought a beer, your medical insurance company got a notice by the friendly credit company and thus added a dime to the premium? (Some credit companies do sell this information, but its not in real-time yet).
What if, at every election, you would have to attach your name to it (thankfully, I have yet to hear about a election like this. I would assume its because the output would be obviously and bad).
Anyway, the categorization of the autonomous vehicle as a 'geek toy' is wrong like you say. The opportunities for improving safety, lowering pollution and improving the traffic system is many.