The privacy issue has been a staple of the social media law conversation since the outset. Facebook and Twitter assure users that their information is perfectly safe behind the doors housing their servers based on the privacy level the user sets for himself…with the occasional hiccup of course.
It’s the new crop of social media tools, however, that has brought the focus back to privacy in a big way. Location-based services Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and many others are vying for users to geo-tag and check-in to help fuel growth in what many see as the next online wave. The concept for each is simple and for the most part universal.
According to Wikipedia, Foursquare, “allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location.” Do we really need more tools to connect with friends when a text message, phone call or status update work just as well? Going back to Wikipedia for the explanation on what the incentive for using the service includes.
It appears that in addition to providing friends, colleagues, and anyone with access to Twitter your immediate whereabouts, it also encourages it by creating a hierarchal system that lets you shout from the virtual rooftops that you’ve “checked in” at a venue more than anyone else has. Seems harmless enough until we look at the parody created by a site called Please Rob Me.
The site uses streams of data from Foursquare when they are posted to Twitter. This information is publicly available in a search, making it theoretically possible for a robber (or anyone else) to keep tabs on when you say you're in your home or not. Clearly, the point of the site is to raise awareness about this potentially dangerous location-based issue. Here’s Please Rob Me’s basic mission statement:
Once word of the site for social media savvy burglars spread, Foursquare headed to their blog to post a reply to the growing concern and basically put the onus back on the users. For the most part that is deserved, but is there a way to allow for this “I’m heading to XYZ and if you happen to be in the neighborhood it would be great to connect” type social media interaction and still emphasize privacy. The founders behind the iPhone application Rally Up seem to have a head start.
Rally Up allows you to friend anybody who is a member of the service and then you choose between four different privacy settings. These choices range from not sharing information with a person, to just seeing a friend's update but not sharing information with them, to giving the contact the full range of access. The idea here is that you only give your real friends full access to all of your updates, while still giving you the option to follow anybody else on the service - though these users can obviously also choose to not share any information with you. Your own home's location is also always private and never shared on the service.
Just like Gowalla and Foursquare, Rally Up features badges, but the emphasis of the service is more on connecting you to your real friends. Because of this, the Rally Up team also decided not to allow users to feed their location to Twitter. You can, however, choose to share your location with your Facebook friends. The assumption here is that your Facebook friends are more likely to be your “real” friends and that Facebook will keep this data private. Instead of connecting to Twitter, Rally Up emphasizes private microblogging on the service itself. You can send short text messages to your friends and you can notify friends when you are on your way to a venue. You can even set up temporary locations, which is useful when going to a house party.
Overall, this approach puts the focus on connecting people and not on venues. This does help in terms of maintaining privacy, but I wonder if this model is sustainable across the bigger platforms that don’t charge a fee to download the application. The venue-focused approach obviously allows Foursquare to eventually monetize its service by attracting advertising dollars from the venues people check in at. Generating revenue has always been the concern for these social media havens that require expensive servers and expensive minds to keep their ships afloat and innovating. Facebook and Twitter have managed to do so on the basis of sheer user numbers alone and only time will tell if the funders of geo-location services are willing to sacrifice on privacy as much as the users are.
It’s the new crop of social media tools, however, that has brought the focus back to privacy in a big way. Location-based services Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and many others are vying for users to geo-tag and check-in to help fuel growth in what many see as the next online wave. The concept for each is simple and for the most part universal.
According to Wikipedia, Foursquare, “allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location.” Do we really need more tools to connect with friends when a text message, phone call or status update work just as well? Going back to Wikipedia for the explanation on what the incentive for using the service includes.
“Points are awarded on weekends and non-business hours for ‘checking in’ at venues. If a user has checked-in to a venue more than anyone else, on separate days, and they have a profile photo, they will be crowned “Mayor” of that venue, until someone else earns the title by checking in more times than the previous mayor. Badges are earned by checking into various venues. Some cities have city-specific badges that can only be earned in a specific city. Users can choose to have their Twitter and/or their Facebook accounts updated when they check in.”
It appears that in addition to providing friends, colleagues, and anyone with access to Twitter your immediate whereabouts, it also encourages it by creating a hierarchal system that lets you shout from the virtual rooftops that you’ve “checked in” at a venue more than anyone else has. Seems harmless enough until we look at the parody created by a site called Please Rob Me.
The site uses streams of data from Foursquare when they are posted to Twitter. This information is publicly available in a search, making it theoretically possible for a robber (or anyone else) to keep tabs on when you say you're in your home or not. Clearly, the point of the site is to raise awareness about this potentially dangerous location-based issue. Here’s Please Rob Me’s basic mission statement:
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address, on the internet. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”
Once word of the site for social media savvy burglars spread, Foursquare headed to their blog to post a reply to the growing concern and basically put the onus back on the users. For the most part that is deserved, but is there a way to allow for this “I’m heading to XYZ and if you happen to be in the neighborhood it would be great to connect” type social media interaction and still emphasize privacy. The founders behind the iPhone application Rally Up seem to have a head start.
Rally Up allows you to friend anybody who is a member of the service and then you choose between four different privacy settings. These choices range from not sharing information with a person, to just seeing a friend's update but not sharing information with them, to giving the contact the full range of access. The idea here is that you only give your real friends full access to all of your updates, while still giving you the option to follow anybody else on the service - though these users can obviously also choose to not share any information with you. Your own home's location is also always private and never shared on the service.
Just like Gowalla and Foursquare, Rally Up features badges, but the emphasis of the service is more on connecting you to your real friends. Because of this, the Rally Up team also decided not to allow users to feed their location to Twitter. You can, however, choose to share your location with your Facebook friends. The assumption here is that your Facebook friends are more likely to be your “real” friends and that Facebook will keep this data private. Instead of connecting to Twitter, Rally Up emphasizes private microblogging on the service itself. You can send short text messages to your friends and you can notify friends when you are on your way to a venue. You can even set up temporary locations, which is useful when going to a house party.
Overall, this approach puts the focus on connecting people and not on venues. This does help in terms of maintaining privacy, but I wonder if this model is sustainable across the bigger platforms that don’t charge a fee to download the application. The venue-focused approach obviously allows Foursquare to eventually monetize its service by attracting advertising dollars from the venues people check in at. Generating revenue has always been the concern for these social media havens that require expensive servers and expensive minds to keep their ships afloat and innovating. Facebook and Twitter have managed to do so on the basis of sheer user numbers alone and only time will tell if the funders of geo-location services are willing to sacrifice on privacy as much as the users are.
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1 comments:
Fantastic points to address.
While I am a Foursquare user, I am careful to avoid Twitter blasts of my location, and on the Foursquare service itself, checking in at my home address. As a woman, I feel this is imperative.
However, I am interested to know whether any statistics have/or could be compiled on the number of crimes committed where suspects admit to, or it can be inferred that, they received information related to the location of victims or their absence from their homes prior to commission of the crimes.
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