Google To Track Mobile Users

Financial Times:

Google is set to draw scrutiny to the privacy implications of "location-aware" mobile services with the announcement on Wednesday of a service that allows users to track the whereabouts of their friends automatically.

The service, Google Latitude, will take the web search company into the increasingly crowded mobile social-networking business, opening another front in its rivalry with mobile carriers.

Read the whole story: Financial Times

Comments

[sueinmn]

07:04 PM on 02/05/2009

Google please create a direct line to the white house for us. To a staff that will sort through emails and pass on those worthy. Your in the White House, make it work for the public!

[sueinmn]

07:03 PM on 02/05/2009

I wish Google would implement a program to go and rate your Senators and other elected officials. So if they receive too many negarives, they are then publically put on notice!1 A little fear towrds next election cycle. This pay t play politics and forgeting who and why they were elected must change. I have lost faith in them all in the Capitol. (still have faith in Obama) bit the rest of them, zillch!

Also an online program to list laws that really effect the public and the people that sponsor them. the lobbiers paying to get them. Example is the H1B visa program that IBM, MICROSFY< INTL< BofA use these peoeple to replace us. We no longer have a voice to end this type of replacemen­t worker program. No one cares and it continues in larger numbers today than ever before. It will get to a point if you dont wear a towel, you dont work!

[Quotidien]

03:02 PM on 02/05/2009

That means that this "Google-St­alk" technology has been around for decades.

Can someone explain to me why we can't find Bin Laden again?

[RTIII]

02:01 PM on 02/05/2009

Google is slowly becoming the instrument of our police state.
.

[elleanee]

08:48 PM on 02/05/2009

I hope everyone knows that google and its founders were funded by the NSA, so from the get go, google was created to surveil the populace.

[ELGUAPO77]

12:05 PM on 02/05/2009

THIS IS VERY SCARY YES PEOPLE WILL HAVE THE OPTION OF BEING TRACKED BUT THIS LAYING THE GROUND WORK OF A POLICE STATE. DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THE MOVIE "DEMOLITIO­N MAN" WITH WESLEY SNIPES AND SLY STALLONE? WHERE EVERYBODY HAD CHIPS IN THEIR HANDS AND COULD BE TRACKED ANYWHERE. THERE ARE COMPANIES OUT THRE THAT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN SO THEY CAN PROFIT AND THEY ARE NOT WORRIED ABOUT OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. THIS SHOULD BE STOPPED IMMEDIATLE­Y. ISN'T THIS WHY WE INVENTED CELL PHONES?

[dgscol]

11:51 AM on 02/05/2009

It does seem that Google has succumbed to the dark side of the search engine. AS someone pointed out, if they can do this so can many others and that is what is frightenin­g. Who in this world wants to be tracked in this way? Aren't there better ways to do this that enabling Google in this fashion?

I think Congress/O­bama needs to address the whole issue of "informati­on gathering" in regard to Google, something the Bush administra­tion ignored.

[GabrielXL]

10:54 AM on 02/05/2009

There is something seriously wrong with the whole concept of this "service" and the people who come up with it.

*Shaking my head"

[climatebabes]

03:28 AM on 02/05/2009

Like Jimmy Roger promoting genetic profiling, an indirect way to make the surevielan­ce society go mainstream­.

[Myshkin57]

01:42 AM on 02/05/2009

What I've gather is most people don't read articles before commenting­.

From the full article:

"Privacy controls will make it possible for people to select who receives the informatio­n, or to go “offline” at any time."

Nobody's going to get stalked any more than they could if they just called their friends to let them know where they're at. The idea behind this type of app is to assist with giving people directions and maybe to keep teens safer. Imagine how helpful this would be if someone's child were lost.

[climatebabes]

03:33 AM on 02/05/2009

Missing the point, the informatio­n will be captured, and the idea of it being catured and available will become accepted. Soon your local authoritie­s will ask if thay can become part of you online inner circle. They will have your mental make up mapped out, and next thing you know you are either working your ass off for the bankers, or fighting in some ridiculous war. You work hard to earn a living, they have time to waste on thinking of way to get on your back.

[WonderingNThinking]

03:35 AM on 02/05/2009

Ah, but it makes tracking others socially acceptable and puts in the "infrastru­cture" for tracking.

[TexasMike]

11:37 PM on 02/04/2009

It didn't take long for the tinfoil hat-types to come out.

What are you bunch worrying about anyway? You never leave your mother's basement anyway.

[rocketman69]

12:23 AM on 02/05/2009

I'm in her living room, doo fus.

[Shinobi]

02:23 PM on 02/05/2009

:-)....LOL­!

[pthalomarie]

11:21 PM on 02/04/2009

somebody is going to get killed because of this feature.

[Tatiana]

11:18 PM on 02/04/2009

What if you didn't have any friends?

[DubiousAtBest]

10:32 PM on 02/04/2009

Jeezus, who the f*** would want THAT feature?!

[RTIII]

01:58 PM on 02/05/2009

Law enforcemen­t.
.

[Quotidien]

03:03 PM on 02/05/2009

Parents

[jazzybo]

10:20 PM on 02/04/2009

Big brother google.Wha­ts next cams?

[EarthToZoey]

10:12 PM on 02/04/2009

This hyper-conn­ectivity will likely cause the downfall of our society.

Whoops, gotta go. Just got a Tweet.