Friday, April 18, 2014
Is Facebook enabling stalking? Not without "opting in"
Facebook is offering an app that will let users know
where other friends are geographically when “close by”. Fortunately, you have to “opt in” to use the
app. The UK Daily Mail has a typical
story here.
My own reaction would be, this is a “stalking app”. I don’t generally need to know where my friends
are (at least not 24x7 or even in a small area), and I don’t buy the idea that
someone needs to be in on your movements to be your “friend”. It seems that the concept takes things a
little bit too far.
The app seems to come from a company called Glancee.
Random surprise glances are, in fact, rather
common. They’ve even happened out of
town, at LAX, or recently when I walk out the car near a bank and stripmall to
see a car that I recognize next to mine, but not the persons.
I can remember back in New York City, back in 1978,
I might have wanted this app.
Picture artwork: Wikipedia attribution link for Sideling Hill Tunnel, abandoned (PA), link My last visit to the area, 2011, but I couldn't get close enough to this myself. I rode through it several times in the 1950's. It was the longest tunnel on the Turnpike at one time. Would cell phones of cyclists in tunnels get picked up for this app?
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