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Facebook Plunges Again
Facebook will enable geolocation -- will you expose yourself?
Facebook, with 400 million users and a wealth of sensitive and contextual information, will make previous attempts at utilizing your location look like child's play. Not only will this impact you as a user of the busiest site on the Internet, but games are about to be turned on their head: if you thought Foursquare was cool, you really have seen nothing yet. There were hints that Facebook would be enabling geolocation in November, and I guarantee that casual games companies like Zynga are wetting their pants in anticipation. Imagine how social gaming could soon become with a geolocation-enabled Facebook: when you visit your friend's house, their FarmVille farm could pop up on your smartphone. How about a healthy version of the game that rewards you for tending to your farm while walking around outside?
Of course, with greater functionality comes wide-ranging risks. We've already seen the potential pitfalls of exposing your location on Foursquare -- won't the 400 million users of Facebook merely exacerbate the issue? Won't the term 'Facebook stalking' take on a whole new meaning when someone actually knows where you are?
I bet there's a large percentage of Facebook users that haven't configured their privacy settings. What if you tell your boyfriend or girlfriend that you're out with friends, but the geolocation data of an uploaded photo gives away your true location? Worse, can you imagine your mother checking up on you?
I know social networking is all about exposing information about ourselves, but most of the time we are aware of the data we're exposing. Be careful, and make sure you know what you're publishing.
Comments
15
Subscribe to commentsmotangMar 10th 2010 1:20PM
Heck no, I don't do that now with twitter.
kojo87Mar 10th 2010 1:23PM
i'd probably use it. a lot of times my statuses are actually informing people where i am so this would cut that out.
how would the geolocation work though? does Facebook do it all or do you need some sort of sensor like Geosense installed if you're on a computer? i imagine this would work quite well on a phone.
Sebastian AnthonyMar 10th 2010 1:30PM
Ya, I imagine it uses either in-browser stuff for desktops, or the GPS chip if it's present.
I'm not sure how it's more helpful than 'I am currently at Fred's house, come see me!'
I mean, it's HANDY... but the amount of risky stuff it makes possible, both to users and developers...
RichMar 10th 2010 1:32PM
Yet another good reason that I don't use FB or Twitter.
PhatmanMar 10th 2010 1:33PM
Cool, now I'll be able to geotag my photo's in facebook and tag them with polar rose. Geotagging was the only reason why I was still using flickr over facebook.
Sebastian AnthonyMar 10th 2010 7:26PM
Now we need control over who can tag photos of us on Facebook, a la Flickr!
NeuroMar 10th 2010 1:52PM
> will you expose yourself?
Given FB history, shouldn't that be "will you spend 30 minutes looking for obscure location to disable the new feature, which they helpfully enable by default?"
Ben!Mar 10th 2010 4:09PM
Yeah, it took me FOREVER to find that clearly labeled privacy page.
Seriously, you guys are idiots.
Sebastian AnthonyMar 10th 2010 7:25PM
I don't think it's particularly hard to find, but that doesn't mean people have actually configured their privacy.
Some people simply don't understand the value/importance of keeping their data secure.
NeuroMar 10th 2010 8:39PM
Ben: you should see some of the messages support for our pages has to deal with. People are unable to locate buttons on the top menu, or read the last sentence on confirmation page consisting of 3 (short) sentences.
Obviously any changes to FB policies are not any issue for typical reader of downloadsquad, but I am not a big fan of their "you gotta opt out" approach. Yes I get their arguments - since most people never touch the settings, requiring opt-in would leave FB pretty locked-down place. But perhaps they could think about their customers a bit more.
Matthew W.Mar 10th 2010 2:33PM
This just gets a big shrug from me. I don't see the point. People don't need to know where I am at all times, and I don't feel any pressing need to share it.
I am just about at a breaking point with Facebook anyway. At first I found it to be a useful tool for keeping up with friends & family, now...not so much. I've found that I liked a lot of the people in my life more when I wasn't constantly exposed to whatever was "on their mind". Copy and paste status messages that spread like the plague, song/movie quotes, and "vaguebooking"...ugh.
JamusMar 10th 2010 4:00PM
"I bet there's a large percentage of Facebook users that haven't configured their privacy settings. "
I would go for 99% of users haven't even looked at their privacy settings.
Sebastian AnthonyMar 10th 2010 7:25PM
I think Facebook gave some statistics, after their recent privacy shift... but I've forgotten the exact numbers.
They saw a large rise in people looking at privacy settings for the first time, though :)
michas_piMar 11th 2010 2:15AM
I bet it will be just like Facebook Beacon (remember that fiasco?): you can opt-out of the program but your location still gets logged on their servers regardless of your privacy settings.
More Web 2.0 horseshit.
P.F. BrunsMar 11th 2010 10:50AM
What could possibly go wrong?