Google now lets you track your friends’ whereabouts
By John Lister
Google is launching a service to allow users to track the physical location of friends and family through their GPS-enabled cellphones. However, privacy concerns mean it will be less useful for keeping tabs on children and more useful for people wanting to cover up an affair.
Latitude is an application for the ‘Google Maps for mobile’ service. It allows you to see local maps with icons showing the current location of friends who’ve signed up to the service. If you want to arrange a meet-up, you can automatically send relevant directions through Google. The service is available now in 27 countries for BlackBerry devices and most phones running Windows Mobile or Symbian. Android and iPhone versions will follow soon.
The system is not a new idea as several other firms offer such a service. However, the sheer size and dominance of Google means it’s likely to become the most successful player in the field. The only real barrier at the moment is that it only covers your contacts through the Google Connect service rather than outside services such as MySpace and Facebook.
Of course, your friends knowing where you are is one thing. Google knowing is quite another. Naturally the firm is insisting that it will follow all relevant privacy laws and guidelines, but that won’t be enough to shake off the fears that Google seems to know a little too much about people for comfort.
Even the official Web site demonstrates this: the first illustration that appears is a map of your local area, presumably taken from your IP address in the same way as ads for adult dating sites claim to have find scantily-clad ladies in your neighbourhood.
However, the service’s opt-in policy means that both the benefits and dangers of the service are heavily limited. Each user must specifically ask to be tracked and has complete control over who sees their location and to what level of detail (which can be as precise as within a few yards and as vague as simply listing a city).
There’s also an option to lie about your whereabouts by manually selecting a location to be displayed. Chances are that will lead to tears and legal battles when a parent or spouse discovers they’ve been receiving duff information about a wayward child or adulterer.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
under
Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!
February 5th, 2009
I know people like to say things like “this is just like Big Brother”, but this really is just like Big Brother. It’s amusing to think that Google thinks there is a market of people who value their privacy so little that they would sign up for this.