Make Money Online Lifehacker
Privacy Is Nevertheless Significant Although Tough To Make Happen For Facebook With Location Based Networking
The social networking site, Facebook, has been introduced to a new location based upon network called Facebook Places. The program, Facebook Places, is used on smartphones with GPS to help find friends that are fairly close. Friends with each other can use Facebook Places to tag each other. Locations the user may want are shown on Places. Broadcasting a user’s location has created another layer in the Facebook privacy issues debate. Facebook Places gives businesses a powerful tool for mobile advertising and search. It could also be used by burglars and other criminals to identify targets. Personal information is vulnerable by default, but Places can be disabled in Facebook privacy settings.
Facebook Places – a tool for mobile advertising
Facebook Places imitates innovations created by location-based networks like Foursquare and Gowalla, which allow users to “check in” at places and broadcast their location to friends. The New York Times reports that Michael Sharon, works for Places, says that Places wants to get a minimum of 500 million Facebook users to use this program. The Times found out that Facebook wants to work with small companies for the Places program. Google can be beat out if Places can work with numerous businesses like this. Analysts say both companies covet the potential market for mobile advertising and search. Identity and behavior is studied this way. Corporations will benefit when knowing what human behavior is turning into.
Facebook Places has troubles with privacy
Broadcasting the location of Facebook users and their friends at any given moment with Places for the benefit of mobile advertising comes off as creepy to Sam Diaz at ZDNet. Diaz explains that many individuals can put your info to the website. The only way to get it off is to have it flagged and looked over. He also doesn’t think friends should be able to tag each other. You can really determine whether or not you get tagged. Just go take a look at your privacy settings. And Diaz said he could not help but wonder how long it takes for Facebook Places to be used for a “who’s not home” app for burglars.
Get a way to disable Facebook Places
Facebook users should listen up. Keep your location on private settings with tips from Lifehacker. Disabling Facebook Places requires logging in and changing the Facebook privacy settings. Facebook Places default settings allow locations where a user checks in to be seen by friends. Also, Facebook lets you be seen on your Facebook page by default. You’ll be seen by anyone looking for users near them. Facebook has one other thing you need to know about this default privacy setting. Friends of friends can see it meaning people you don’t know might know exactly where you are.
Further reading
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/19/technology/19facebook.html?ref=technology
ZDNet
zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-launches-places-geo-location-service-thats-both-cool-and-creepy/38203
Lifehacker
lifehacker.com/5616395/how-to-disable-facebook-places
Bored? Check out these three great sites!
