A scary but useful service

While Google's promise to allow mobile users to track each other sounds like a great idea, how privacy is managed may make all the difference

A scary but useful service

While Google's promise to allow mobile users to track each other sounds like a great idea, how privacy is managed may make all the difference

Google has come up with a variety of features that have wowed customers, but people tend to be a little wary of this company when it comes to privacy.

This concerns an upgrade to its mobile maps, called Latitude, which will allow people with mobile phones to share details of their whereabouts with friends and family. Right now, Google Latitude will work on Blackberry phones and mobiles running Symbian software or Windows Mobile. It is also expected to work on some T-1 Mobile phones running Google's Android. In the future, versions are planned for iPhone and iTouch.

Privacy concerns

While this sounds interesting, the big danger is that this has a capacity to be misused. Google understands this and has promised a slew of steps to ensure that users feel confident about using this service. For one thing, users are said to have complete control they have to turn on the feature themselves because it comes turned off by default.

You can also decide who can and who can't monitor where you are so, we presume that you can let your boss know where you are while hiding this information from your colleagues if need be.

Google also says that they will only store the last location on their computers, so there is no breadcrumb trail. This is critical because otherwise all movements can be tracked and if the wrong people get their hands on this, the backlash could be bad for Google.

While Google has a good name for a lot of services that it is offering, people have in the past found fault with the length of time for which it stores server logs concerning browsing. However, in 2008, Google reduced this from 18 months to nine months, so there may not be much to worry about.

A blessing too

Of course, privacy apart, this could be a boon at times. For instance, if you have had an accident and if a phone can, in the future, be programmed to react to a strong application of a force by automatically summoning an ambulance to the scene of the accident, then you could easily be saving a life.

There is also a version for PCs, which can be used by parents to track their children.

While the service seems interesting and while Google's plans for minimising privacy intrusion seem adequate at the moment, the litmus test will be the way in which the service is used.

Of course, the larger question is, how do we define the boundaries between a useful feature and a privacy concern? This is not an easy question to answer because these days almost all technological innovations seem to provide some advantage at the cost of privacy.

QUICK TAKE
>>Google Latitude will help you to reveal your current position
>>This service is great for emergencies
>>However, it may raise some critical privacy issues

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