Facebook has today launched its check-in feature, Places, in the UK.
In keeping with Facebook’s cookie-cutter approach to international product rollout, it’s identical to the US version, albeit using a local provider of location information.
But the social network’s ambitions for location-based information don’t stop there.
Users of specialist photo sites such as Flickr have been able to tag pictures and videos for some time, but Facebook members can’t… yet.
“There are only so many things we can do with an [initial] launch,” said Michael Sharon, Facebook’s product manager for Places, told reporters in London via a shakey Skype video link on Friday morning. “You can expect to see location woven into many other parts of Facebook in the future. We are taking it one step at a time.”
Facebook hasn’t yet explained how it will commercialise Places. You can’t buy an ad on a specific Place page, for instance, although fine-tuning its targeting could raise the odds of an ad appearing next to a particular shop or restaurant.
An incremental approach also applies to Places’ availability throughout Europe, where sensitivities around location and privacy have caused problems for big American technology companies before.
“We would love to roll out as quickly as possible [across Europe],” Mr Sharon said, without giving any indication of a likely timescale. “We are taking it slow to make sure we have a high quality experience.”
Privacy campaigners, including Simon Davies of Privacy International, have in recent weeks been circulating a document detailing a “geo-location privacy framework” to the technology industry and to national data protection commissioners. They include principles around clarity and transparency of privacy policies, data sharing, anonymisation and retention. (Facebook’s location data is held on servers largely in the US.)
One area of concern has been Facebook Places’ ability to check-in other people, once they have given their one-time consent to such an activity. Users can delete these tags as they are notified of them, Mr Sharon said. “The tag completely disappears. It’s as if you were never there.”
But the default settings are different for minors, which Facebook classifies as those aged between 13 (its minimum age for accepting a user) and 17. Even if such a user sets their Places settings as visible to “everyone”, only friends will actually be able to see them.
“We expect that this group will want to use location-based services,” said Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of European public policy. “We believe that it is sensible to make available to them a safe service with appropriate protections like ours, rather than deny them access altogether. For most content, teenagers under 18 are restricted to posting only to friends of friends. For location content we have gone one stage further and made this friends-only, recognising the additional sensitivity around this data.”
It’s interesting that Facebook sees location data as different to the many other kinds of information posted on its site. By emphasising the “additional sensitivity” of location, it’s clearly trying hard not to set a precedent here. Is geo data really so different to personal photos, lists of friends or political and religious preferences?
A BBC journalist at this morning’s briefing asked if it was possible for adults to register themselves as minors, if they were worried about their location data getting out. Facebook said it wasn’t, but that users can opt out of letting friends check them in.
Even so, it’s an interesting idea, given how ringfenced minors’ data seems to be on Facebook Places.
Birth date settings can be changed by clicking “edit my profile” underneath your picture on your profile page. However, Facebook says that it may review or prevent age changes if it looks as though people are lying about their age – which seems fair, given the company is trying to ensure a minimum age for membership.
