What’s wrong with geolocation

One of the things I never could really understand was why people are so enthuziastic about geolocation. Yes, being enthuziastic is a good thing and it’s normal when you have a new toy to play with, but not when the toy has blades that might cut.

If you remember, there was a case of a woman that wrote on her Facebook account that she’s going in a vacation and, while she was out, some of her Facebook “friends” broke in. Now, that’s a risk that geolocation implies and it’s the risk no one seems to care about.

An ugly story

I live in a nine story building with 45 apartments only in this wing, which makes it harder to find my flat and rob it, but think about someone who lives in the suburbs and owns a house. Geolocation means pointing on a map the exact location of that house. And breaking and entering is not the only risk you take while using this service.

Let’s say some guy is Facebook-friends with a pretty girl. She’s a good looking woman, but he’s not her type. He insists. She refuses. One day, he gets drunk and has the brilliant idea of paying her a visit. He opens Facebook and takes a look at her last itineraries, he gets her house location, gets in his car, drives in front of her house, she gets raped.

Now, that’s worse than being robbed. OK, he goes to jail, he’ll be paying for being a stupid ass. But she’s going to be marked for life. It’s a tragic experience no one should ever have. So, the question remains: why so enthuziastic?

What should be done?

First of all, having a positioning system on your phone is brilliant. It doesn’t matter if it’s A-GPS, like Google Maps based on using phone signal triangulation to point your location, it doesn’t matter if it’s a GPS software like iGO, which I used on my former HTC Touch Pro phone and still using on my new HTC Desire.

It’s great: you can easily get directions, find out how to get where you need to be, you can calculate distances, works both while driving or walking. But what about your phone sending your location out there without your permission?

I don’t use Foursquare, but I know how it works. You specifically send your location. It’s a great system, but think about using geolocation in a stupid way, without thinking about the consequences. Like most of Facebook users do. “Wow, this is great!”, she wrotes on her wall while below the message you can see “written from here“, where “here” is her home position on a map. It’s all about using it wisely.

The privacy issue

I’m not a privacy paranoid. I’m a Google heavy user and that says all about me. I use GMail, so Google knows all my connections, I use Google Docs so Google knows everything I’m working on, I use Google Contacts and I keep all my phone numbers in it, none of them in my device’s phonebook (hell, I love syncing), I use Google Reader, so Google knows all my interests, etc. I hate Buzz, though.

But the thing with Google is that your details won’t go public. It’s alright for me if Google uses some of my personal data in their research as long as my e-mails don’t get into the wrong hands. But it’s not OK to post your location all the time.

So this is what Facebook should do with Places: try to minimize the negative impact of geolocation on its users. Add options so the user can hide his home location, to automatically disable geolocation while being in a certain area.

It’s gonna be fun

I can’t wait to see how many trials will Facebook have to face in the future. Because people don’t really care about the risks and that’s going to hurt. As I said, it’s going to be fun to watch.