About Social Media Today
Last Wednesday, there was a conference designed around one of the newest crazes in web technology and social media here in San Francisco: geo-location. What is geo-location? Think about it like your GPS device..it uses satellites and cell towers to figure out where you are. But in this case, the conference isn’t talking about your Tom Tom or your Magellan. Rather, they’re focusing on the tools that we probably most commonly use for entertainment purposes like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite and Google Latitude. But while we see a lot more usage of these location-based services around town, do we really understand the dangers that it poses? Surely someone did a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to this new form of technology? How is checking into a location using Foursquare or Gowalla any different than having Google Maps use its system to tell you the area where you are? These are just some of the issues that were addressed at the Geo-Loco conference panel aptly titled “Please Stalk Me” and featured some great people on the dais.
Your panelists for this discussion included Stage Two founding partner Jeremy Toeman, Altimeter Group partner Deb Schultz, Location Labs’ Akash Agarwal, Quova’s Marie Alexander and Loopt’s CEO Sam Altman.
So what are some dangers with respect to these geo-location based services? It’s about the same as your privacy with Facebook. People are worried about the dangers that can come from using these services, but why would people still use them? The debate about using these location-based services, or LBS, should include talk about its entertainment value, business value and also its predatory nature. Yes, that’s right…predatory nature. It is so appropriate for this panel to be called “Please Stalk Me” because that is what LBS allows people to do. If your friends are interested in finding out where you are, then that might be comfortable to you, but there are a lot of LBS tools out there whose systems allow you to push your location to various other social networks and a lot of people seem to be wanting to share their information, but is that necessarily the right thing to do? A majority of those on the panel say that they’d appreciate more privacy in their location check-ins. While Loopt’s Altman says that a small percentage might only want to have the privacy more apparent, a majority of their users seems to want to continue with the way things are.
But location-based services can really have a harmful affect on people. I recently wrote a post about Facebook privacy and while it’s not location specific, there are a lot of things that hold merit. In fact, a few months ago, a new website (albeit temporary) was created to highlight the dangers of exposing your check-ins. You may have heard about the site Please Rob Me and its attempt at using the LBS data to publicly tell people watching where exactly others were. This data wasn’t confidential or hidden. It was readily available to those who knew where to look. In fact, the creators of the site didn’t need to search very far. A lot of the data came from those who checked into locations and had their settings set to push notifications to Twitter and that became available to the world. In fact, that’s almost akin to going out to a billboard and plastering your location right there for the entire world to see without regards for your own welfare.
Yes, using location-based services are very entertaining, but who is responsible for ensuring the safety of the user? Is it the company or the user themselves? It is actually both parties and what I saw at this Please Stalk Me panel was some notable people almost “ganging up” on the sole LBS representative to tell them what they would like. Granted they were right, but the point should only be focused on helping to educate both the service provider AND the end user and showing them that there is inherent danger in showing where you are, especially when you don’t care to control who sees that information. Companies that create location-based services should look at making privacy the default setting and then allowing the end user to whittle down what he or she feels comfortable doing instead of making it public by default – and some services may already be doing that.
Some of the other discussions that took place during this session included protecting your venue. For Jeremy Toeman, he loves going to a nearby restaurant by his home where he is almost considered a regular. He currently does not use any location-based service nor does he intend to, but if he did, he probably would not because what LBS does for him is ruin a good secret. Granted he’s on Yelp and puts in reviews, but in doing so, as the place becomes more popular, the great secret of a good restaurant is exposed, ruining his experience. However, apart from this example, other topics included personal safety. I personally have spoken to some close friends who use check-in services and they tell me that they wouldn’t check-in until after they leave. Why? To avoid any stalkers and strangers approaching them and joining them. I recall a post written by Melissa Rowley for the Los Angeles blog Lalawag about the dangers of Foursquare during a recent dining experience in the city:
…an unknown number showed up on my iPhone. I normally only answer calls from numbers I recognize, but I picked up anyway. The caller asked me why I hadn’t been to Runyon Canyon lately. Back when I lived in West Hollywood, I hiked in Runyon Canyon Park two hours a day and I checked in regularly. When I asked who was calling he hung up. Turns out Foursquare makes your cell phone number visible to anyone you befriend on the Foursquare.
These types of dangers are real and can affect everyone, but especially women. Are you entirely sure who you are friends with? When you expose your data out into the world, while you’re willing to be public about your information, make sure that you are always taking the steps needed to protect your privacy AND yourself.
