If you haven't heard, facebook launched its geolocation feature this week. It's basically identical to foursquare inasmuch as you can notify people of where you are, and the service uses your social network and crowdsourcing to tell you about points of interest around you, with one important exception: you can tag other people as being in the same location as you, much as you would tag them in a photo.
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010...e-web-apps.ars
Of course, there is the option of turning off the feature so that you can't be tagged, but for those who forget, don't know how, or simply don't, I can imagine the following scenarios being fairly common: person 1 calls his boss to tell him he's sick, hits the golf course with person 2. Person 2 tags person 1 as being at the links with him all day, boss finds out, guy gets fired. Or: guy 1 says he can't go to his girlfriend's piano recital because his friend's cousin's funeral is that day, then heads to the bar. Guy 1's buddy tags him at the bar, boom, relationship over.
Believe it or not, you can even tag people as being around you when they aren't even there. That has the potential for some next level sabotage or pranksterism.
I don't use facebook but I am consistently impressed with the way that its sole distinguishing feature these days seems to be greater encroachments into private life than any other comparable service. Yet it flourishes. To an extent, Zuckerberg was right when he said people don't really want privacy.
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010...e-web-apps.ars
Of course, there is the option of turning off the feature so that you can't be tagged, but for those who forget, don't know how, or simply don't, I can imagine the following scenarios being fairly common: person 1 calls his boss to tell him he's sick, hits the golf course with person 2. Person 2 tags person 1 as being at the links with him all day, boss finds out, guy gets fired. Or: guy 1 says he can't go to his girlfriend's piano recital because his friend's cousin's funeral is that day, then heads to the bar. Guy 1's buddy tags him at the bar, boom, relationship over.
Believe it or not, you can even tag people as being around you when they aren't even there. That has the potential for some next level sabotage or pranksterism.
I don't use facebook but I am consistently impressed with the way that its sole distinguishing feature these days seems to be greater encroachments into private life than any other comparable service. Yet it flourishes. To an extent, Zuckerberg was right when he said people don't really want privacy.
