Apr 08
Location-Based Services: Privacy vs. Responsibility
Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) at 6:00 am under Social
I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately from people who are concerned about the privacy of some of our new social technologies, in particular the geotagging services such as Loopt, Gowalla, Foursquare, Rally Up, and Brightkite. For example:
- On Geek.com, Christian Zibreg says of Twitter’s new geotagging feature, “There’s no doubt geotagging is a privacy advocates’ nightmare, especially for users who have their Twitter timeline set public.”
- On VentureBlog, a commenter wrote, “Many of my young women friends are not comfortable with LBS [location-based services] because of stalkers: it has already happened to some of them, and others are just wary. After all, think of what happened to Kathy Sierra just from blogging.”
- On ZDNet, Jennifer Leggio stated, “Any time you take to a social network you give up some of your privacy. This is especially true when using a social network that’s sole purpose is to tell your friends where you are at any given time.”
- The site PleaseRobMe.com‘s mission statement includes this statement: “The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home.”
While I certainly share the same concerns over privacy of one’s whereabouts, I think there is another topic here that hasn’t really been addressed much, and that is the topic of taking personal responsibility for one’s actions…
There are good arguments for privacy surrounding location-based services, however I think it’s important to remember that every single one of these tools is opt-in. You don’t have to use them. In addition to that, once you register for an account you have the option NOT to send updates to Twitter, Facebook, or any other social channels, and you always have the option not to connect to other people and let them know what you’re doing.
People are so quick to point fingers at someone or something else when things don’t go right that they quite often forget that they themselves left the door wide open for misfortune to occur. I don’t think this is limited to geotagging, either. I see people who get upset over things that are posted to their Facebook wall as well. A little common sense goes a long way when establishing what you will and won’t allow to be posted to your Facebook wall – by others as well as by yourself. It’s pretty silly, in my opinion, to blame the creator of the site or service for invasion of privacy when you’ve been given the tools with which to make your profile or communication private. Instead of blindly using a service and not checking out its privacy customizations, take a moment to look at what you’re getting yourself into. Take responsibility for your own actions.
We need to educate people on responsible networking and connecting. These apps are much more personal than LinkedIn and therefore we should not just be accepting connection requests because someone follows us on Twitter. There are consequences to connecting with people and sharing your location. I personally would consider myself to be an over-sharer. (though I haven’t unlocked that badge on Foursquare just yet!) I admittedly check in a lot and readily share my locations with my network. However, I’ll also accept full responsibility for any consequences of my over-sharing. Nothing bad has happened to me yet. (knock on wood)
I think in the end it is really important to keep in mind that our hands are not being forced when it comes to any of these geotagging tools. We always have the option not to connect, not to share, and not to use.
How do you hold yourself personally responsible when you use location-based services? What are your personal policies on privacy when it comes to social media?
The argument you make about the privacy/sharing concerns reminds me of the same types of issues when people were starting to set up wireless networks in their homes. A number of people were buying these devices, connecting them to their home internet service, and calling it good. None of the security was enabled out of the box (and as far as I know, still isn’t). And when it comes to tech support, I always tell people RTFM, but few of them ever do. Then a company like Best Buy can swoop in and make a buck by taking care of this for you (could you imagine someone offering to help set up your privacy levels on Facebook or Twitter and charging a fee for it?). In a few years, however, people will wise up, realize the dangers, and take the necessary precautions (at this moment, 16 of the 17 wireless access points in range of my living room, including my own, have some sort security in place).
Blaming these sites for the privacy loopholes is kind of pointless. It’s like blaming the government for all your problems in life. People just need to step up and accept the consequences for their decisions (I should probably get off this soapbox before I get in trouble…). Back to my point, we get to use Facebook and Twitter at no cost to us. If we were directly paying to use these services, then maybe we would get stronger privacy settings by default. For now? We get what we pay for.
I know I rambled on there, and I may not have a real point to it. The last thing I’ll say on it is this: “They never change security until it’s too late.” Leroy Jethro Gibbs said it better than I could ever do.
[Cross-posting from Facebook]:
Good post! I will share locations of restaurants, ski resorts, shops,airports, concert venues and other cool places to give the businesses more business. But I will not share when I check into my home or hotel. Or even secret campground (hehe).