Privacy Concerns Raised Over Facebook Places

Facebook has launched its new Places feature, but analysts warn the ability to share their current location with friends on the social network could create new risks and new social pressures for users.

The service allows users to “check-in” at whatever restaurant, show or place of interest they happen to be visiting at the time, automatically posting an update in their friends’ news feeds, as well as showing up in the recent activity section on the page for that place. The application also shows if any of the users’ friends have checked in nearby.

The Places feature is available as an iPhone application or via Facebook’s smartphone site, for users whose mobile browser supports HTML 5 and geolocation. It is currently only available in the United States, but Facebook says it expects to “make it available to more countries and on additional mobile platforms soon”.

Privacy concerns

According to Facebook, when users check in to Places they can also tag friends who are with them, “just as you can tag a friend in a status update or photo”. This is where the privacy concerns come into play, with many commentators pointing out that people might not want their Facebook friends to know where they are.

Facebook Places also offers a “People Here Now” section, allowing users to see others who have checked in at that place – whether they are friends or not.

“This section is visible for a limited amount of time and only to people who are checked in there,” said Facebook in a blog post. “That way you can meet other people who might share your interests. If you prefer not to appear in this section, you can control whether you show up by unchecking the ‘Include me in People Here Now after I check in’ privacy control.”

According to Gartner analyst Carsten Casper, however, the privacy implications of the new Facebook service hinge on the security of the application code.

“At a first glance it seems that Facebook has done a good job,” Casper told eWEEK Europe. “Users can control how they check-in to places, and they can check-in others – or be checked-in – only if the profile is set accordingly.

“On the other hand: It depends on how good and secure the application code is, both of the Facebook Places platform and third party applications. All software is flawed. Time will tell. But even without vulnerabilities, the question is: How likely is it that location information can be abused?”

Casper suggests a scenario where a group of Facebook “friends” – who could be business people, politicians, military personnel or members of a specific ethnic group – all check into the same location. If just one of these “friends” turns out to be an imposter, then a real crime – or even a terrorist attack – is possible, according to Casper.

“Obviously, it depends on privacy settings, but with such service moving mainstream, it is more likely that less knowledgeable users are pressured to use location-based services and check-in,” he said. “Social networks create social pressure.”

Malicious coders are already showing signs of exploiting the potential of geo-location. This week a Trojan was uncovered in an Android app, which reports GPS location data to a third party.

Location sector

The launch of Facebook’s new geolocation feature could spell trouble for existing location-based social networking services, like Foursquare and Gowalla. These services have picked up a loyal following over the last year, although a recent market research report from Forrester found that location-based social networks have been slow to take off – with some 84 percent of users surveyed still not familiar with these applications.

According to Gartner Analyst Ray Valdes, however, Facebook’s move into the location sector is not in any way an attempt to push out competitors.

“With today’s announcement, Facebook did not try to crush emerging challengers in the location sector, but instead brought them up on stage,” said Valdes. “Execs from Foursquare, Gowalla and Booyah succinctly extolled the virtues of the Facebook platform, and how this validates the market segment, and what a good opportunity the platform provides.

“Although these expressions of goodwill were made through strained faces, the situation was a lot better than the hypothetical alternative,” he added. “The reality is that Facebook has not boxed in rivals but instead given them an escape hatch. If they are able to keep up the pace in innovation, they can perhaps stay ahead of the Facebook juggernaut – and survive long enough to get acquired by Google or Microsoft.”

Last month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social network now has more than 500 million registered users, just six years after it was first launched.

Google has already launched its effort in geo-location, with the Latitude API, announced in May, which lets Google’s users place their identity and see other users on Google Maps.