The latest changes to Facebook’s privacy policy are already drawing the ire of privacy advocates concerned about the social networking site’s plans to automatically share user information with certain sites.
Yet included in the proposed changes are hints that Facebook is also preparing to make location-sharing an integral part of its service, something that could further push the boundaries of how much personal information users are, perhaps unwittingly, exposing to the public.
Location-sharing services are one of the hottest topics in technology circles these days. Entrepreneurs and engineers are positively giddy about the potential, even though the frontrunners have so far failed to gain much traction. But you can bet that Facebook believes that with its more than 400m users, if it turns on location-sharing, it won’t take long before it’s mainstream.
In a blog post announcing the changes Facebook deputy general counsel Michael Richter said:
The last time we updated the Privacy Policy, we included language describing a location feature we might build in the future. At that point, we thought the primary use would be to “add a location to something you post.” Now, we’ve got some different ideas that we think are even more exciting.
So, we’ve removed the old language and, instead added the concept of a “place” that could refer to a Page, such as one for a local restaurant. As we finalize the product, we look forward to providing more details, including new privacy controls.
Mr Richter said privacy controls would be a part of any new location-sharing feature. But given Facebook’s record of imposing more public settings on users and making them opt out of sharing too much information, it’s hard not to wonder if users will have to opt out of location sharing, too.
“If users opt in to [location sharing], it’s fine,” Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre told me. “But if users are opted-in to locational tagging automatically, I think there’s going to be a big problem.”
