you would think that a leftie privacy advocate such as i, could not also be an advocate for location based services such as foursquare. well it’s actually not that hard to reconcile.
first of all, location based services have utility. i’m not talking just about the coupons and deals you can get on foursquare (and soon to facebook places). i’m talking about knowing where your friends or family members are. for kristen foursquare saved her life. my friend josh uses facebook places checkins to let his friends know which pub his at on a pub crawl. i personally like using both of those services to get tips and leave tips for other people. it’s especially when you land in a new city and need to know the best place for some r&r.
the key to utilising these services effectively is maintaining control over your information, as i discussed with a journalist last week.
everything is public on the internet
the dogmatic privacy boffins would say that all information on the internet is public. to a certain extent they’re right, but you need to inject this with a health dose of realism as well. an analogy is using your credit card online. yes it can be dangerous, and if you card number gets stolen (particularly if it’s a visa/mastercard debit card) you could be out of pocket to large amounts of dollars, until such time as the bank returns it. but you take reasonable precautions and you’re probably more likely to have your card skimmed at an atm.
control is an illusion, you don’t really control your data
again, this is also true in some respects. facebook has in the past, and probably will in the future, change its policies or expose your data on purpose or by accident. no doubt foursquare could misstep in a similar form or fashion. my argument is rather than not use something that is truly useful, why don’t we put those energies into bringing control back? forcing developers to make secure applications and safeguard privacy policies? thousands drown each year, does that mean we should ban beaches and swimming pools or teach people to swim and train lifeguards?
