Be Careful of Sharing your Location
- Sunday, March 28 2010 @ 03:36 pm
- Contributed by: Editor
- Views: 1,963
Good Morning America had a piece on Social Networking a couple of days ago which they focused on location-aware services. These types of services update friends and strangers alike on where you are and what you are up too. Many people on these networks also freely update their walls or statuses telling people where they are or where they will be. Some examples of these location services include Twitter and Foursquare. Twitter recently added a feature which allows you to tie your location to any Tweet. Foresquare lets people know what restaurants, events and clubs you are at (among other information).
Social Networking sites are not alone in offering these types of location services. Some online dating sites offer a similar tool which will allow you to meet up with singles within your vicinity. The one major difference between dating sites and social networks in regards to location based services is dating sites offers much more privacy. A lot less information is shared about who you are and where you live.
This is not the case with social networks, especially if it is tied to a Facebook account. Most people share a surprisingly amount of information on Facebook. Sure they may not share their address but most Facebook users share enough information to make it possible for a tech savvy burglar to find your address.
Using these Social Networking location based services is like walking out of your apartment building and yelling for all to hear that you are going to be away for the next few hours. I don't think many people would, but a lot feel its fine to do it online. The excuse for most is that they are just telling their friends where they are. According to Facebook and average user have 130 friends. That is a lot of people who know where you are. The surprising thing is, according to Good Morning America "over 50 percent of identity theft was perpetrated by someone the victim knew". It is not a huge step in my opinion from someone stealing your identity to someone stealing your brand new TV.
For more on the story, read ABC News.
Social Networking sites are not alone in offering these types of location services. Some online dating sites offer a similar tool which will allow you to meet up with singles within your vicinity. The one major difference between dating sites and social networks in regards to location based services is dating sites offers much more privacy. A lot less information is shared about who you are and where you live.
This is not the case with social networks, especially if it is tied to a Facebook account. Most people share a surprisingly amount of information on Facebook. Sure they may not share their address but most Facebook users share enough information to make it possible for a tech savvy burglar to find your address.
Using these Social Networking location based services is like walking out of your apartment building and yelling for all to hear that you are going to be away for the next few hours. I don't think many people would, but a lot feel its fine to do it online. The excuse for most is that they are just telling their friends where they are. According to Facebook and average user have 130 friends. That is a lot of people who know where you are. The surprising thing is, according to Good Morning America "over 50 percent of identity theft was perpetrated by someone the victim knew". It is not a huge step in my opinion from someone stealing your identity to someone stealing your brand new TV.
For more on the story, read ABC News.
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