The Dark Side of Location-Based Social Networking
With the recent release of iPhone 3G and the launch of Apple’s App Store, location-aware social networking applications will be making their way into the hands of more people than ever before. The ease of use and simplicity in downloading new apps means that Apple has virtually removed the tech know-how barrier to participation. Many of the launch day applications are free iPhone versions of popular social networking web sites. Just about every major player has an app available for download either now or in the near future – Facebook (links open in iTunes if installed), MySpace, Twitter (via a third-party), Pownce, Flickr (via Exposure, by a third-party), and Loopt, who presented their app during Apple’s keynote announcement. Most of these apps use your location in some way, opening up some exciting possibilities for extremely localized search, directions, and more applications hitherto unimagined. All of these location-based apps are opt-in due to a restriction in Apple’s iPhone software development kit – the phone will prompt you if the application wants to gain access to your current location.
Of those mentioned above, Loopt has created a bit of a debacle and garnered a great deal of ill-will this week by broadcasting your phone number and current location to everyone in your contact list.
The point of Loopt is to be able to let your friends know where you are so you can get together (without having to actually communicate with anyone via text message, phone, or email). I for one am a bit reluctant to constantly reveal my current location, even to friends, but by sending SMS text messages to everyone whose phone number you’ve ever added to your contact list, Loopt breaks a social contract by violating their users’ privacy.
Even without installing the Loopt app on my iPhone I’ve been barraged by text messages from others who have installed it and unwittingly been sending out scores of SMSes without knowing it. Aside from privacy concerns, sending and receiving text messages costs both the sender and recipient money. I pay for a 200 text message plan, but after that texts are $.20 to send or receive – imagine the costs involved if you have a lot of contacts in your contact list! Since contacts are one of the easiest things to sync to my iPhone, I have a lot of contact info for people that I don’t necessarily want to spam with text messages asking them to join a service so they can spam other people with costly SMSes.
Given the backlash on the Internet, it will likely be just a matter of time before Loopt corrects this issue, but in the meantime, be very, very careful which networks you trust with your sensitive information, including your current whereabouts.
UPDATE (16 July): Loopt has announced that they will disable the feature that automatically sends invites to everyone on your contact list in their next update. No word yet on updates to their SMS service that will respond to the industry standard “STOP” message so non-subscribers can stop receiving spam from them.
