Introducing Facebook Places

No stranger to controversy, Facebook, the world famous social networking site, is once again making headlines. This time it’s all about their new geo-location service; Places. This new application enables mobile phone users at a touch of a button to alert their friends (and anyone else who may be interested) to their current location and whereabouts. Supporters of this application will tell you it’s all just a bit of fun and a great way to meet up with friends, but even they cannot deny that there is a potentially sinister, if not ‘stalker-ish’ quality to the whole thing. After all, who really needs to know where you are at all times of the day?

However, the technology is not new. Foursquare; an award-winning, rival location-based networking site has been available since 2009, and as of November 2010 Foursquare has a reported 4.5 million users. Facebook are, undoubtedly, hoping to cash-in on this demand by aiming to eventually offer this application to all of its half-a-billion active users worldwide. Obviously, these applications are popular, but the question remains: are they safe? In February 2010, a website known as Please Rob Me was launched. The site accumulates data from networking sites like Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter and publishes data about where people are and at what time. The purpose of the site is to raise awareness about revealing too much information and to expose the potential dangers of the geo-location craze; if you are letting everyone know that you’re spending time with your best friend at a bar or the local coffee house, then you are also letting everyone know you are not at home.

In light of this, Facebook has introduced privacy controls where you can limit the number of people allowed to see your location and it operates on an “opt-out” basis – unlike the majority of features on Facebook where most changes and updates are compulsory. Facebook is keen to stress that only a user’s friends will be able to see their location and where they’ve “checked-in” to, unless the user explicitly decides to share this information with everyone. Although many would assume that the majority of users would decide to restrict who can see their information, in fact there are more users who allow universal access to their locations than there are those who restrict it.

If nothing else, Facebook Places represents a clear indication that the information people are willing to share is increasing at a steady (and depending on your point of view, alarming) pace. Just a few years ago, mainstream internet users often wouldn’t even share their real names on the web, now we share our names, locations and personal details all in real-time. As a result we are forced to remind ourselves that the information we publish, although seemingly innocent, often gives away much more than we realise. It, therefore, becomes important to consider that in a world of identity theft and internet fraud, those who see our information may not necessarily have our best interests at heart.

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Introducing Facebook Places

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