At this moment, Google, Facebook, and Twitter in particular are waging a war, not just on anonymity, but on privacy in general. It's not as terrible as it sounds. These assholes aren't bursting into our homes and making us use these products. I still don't have Facebook and Twitter can suck a dick. Google, however, aggravates me a bit…
I'd like to review things on Google, but they make you use your real name. Not like “Kevin L.” or some shit, no, your whole name. Can you opt to not use your whole name? Not anymore. It remains a challenge to use a nickname on youtube, which is also aggravating.
I propose that this is going to bite them in an interesting way. If you can't swallow anonymity, then you have to at least allow for privacy.
In regards to reviews:
Theory: the people most-likely to review things are those with the most common names. If you're named Dave Smith, you don't have much to fear. No crazy business owner is going to hunt you down and slash the tires on your car because you didn't like their burritos. If your name is the only one like it in town, or the whole country, you're less likely to review things for fear of your unique name being plastered all over the Internet and your opinions being known to (potentially) the wrong people.
Theory: average people are less likely to review things, while an interesting mix of the woefully unimportant and narcissists (actually, online, one in the same) dominate the conversation. Why the fuck does United Airlines have a one star review at every airport? Because the 2 and 3 star1) experiences are lost to many users simply not wanting to go to the trouble of reviewing things, in-part because they want to limit exposure of their person online. One star reviews are the result of the rightfully upset2), people who expect first class treatment for coach prices (narcissists), and people who legitimately expect an airline to hold the plane for them because they're running late (idiots). If we're Google, we want to know about the rightfully upset, but we also want to know about the average experience. Instead, we sure know that Vanessa Gomez is having a bad time almost everywhere she goes…
Yelp is different in that at least it respects privacy enough to turn last names into initials. I give them credit for that. At least every time it's mattered, reviews here to tend to stray higher, even if they're closer than I'd expect. Turns out a lot of people are named Dave Smith or don't give a single fuck about their own privacy.