Nobody Wants To Be GPS Tracked — Or Do They?

An interesting little article today I picked up on about GPS tracking and the social networking phenomenon.  I get plenty of searches here at GPS ROI Tracking and also have heard plenty of people express their desire not to be tracked.  It’s almost obligatory that every business owner will ask about the possibilities of tracking his/her workers secretly as well (I don’t recommend this, by the way, but in many cases it’s completely legal).

So when “those who know” find out that people aren’t following what the “knowledgeable ones” perceive is the wisdom of the crowd it makes news.   The Herald tribune (whom I have quoted several times previously) is smart enough to recognize that”news” is exactly what “news” implies … although a few of the sources quoted in this article seem to come across as telling people what to do, rather than reporting what people actually prefer to do.

Virtually everyone who has any ‘Net savvy at all knows about the massive boom in “social networking”.  Here the International Trib has a nice piece of reportage on the actual facts of ordinary folk and the GPS aspect of social networking.  The Luddites among us tsk tsk tsk with all sorts of reasons why people shouldn’t share information with others.  The so-called Electronic Freedoms Foundation, whom I have always found to be an organization which defines “freedom” strictly on it’s own terms, issues a statement about how this trend to share locations is a “massive change” and about how the Foundation has yet to grapple with the privacy risks.  Hmm, nothing like getting a handle 0on it, Mr. Bankston, the GPS has been around, useable by the public for close to 20 years now … and cell phone, whether by GPS or other means must be locatable under Federal Law for several years now.  So, perhaps, the EFF will soon blow the dust off their calendar and begin to “grapple” with something in this century, rather than the last?

Meanwhile, as the article points out, thousands of people every day not only embrace the idea of knowing where friends and family are, but in some cases happily turn over extra monthly fees to do so.  The reporter, (excellent job, by the way, Ms. Holson) seemed to have no problem in finding a number of examples of folks happy to track and be tracked.  Among the examples which caught my eye was one that points up a benefit of GPS tracking I often ring up in the commercial and public safety world … elimi8natiing the present practice of loading/over loading voice networks with non-voice data.  Sam Altman relates how he got the idea for the social location network he founded when he watched students come out of college lecture halls and immediately start calling their friends to find out who was nearby.  You know, this seems kind of natural to me … as humans we are by and large social creatures … we like finding and being found by friends.  And this poses a privacy risk to whom, I wonder?  I’m 40 years older than Mr. Altman but it seems my brain still functions a lot like his … seems useful and even fun to me … if I have 15 minutes before the next class and want to grab a cup of coffe, why roam through the entire list of folks on my phone, calling or texting until maybe I find someone else near the coffee shop?

Another person interviewed liked how much time the service saved her when friends she was meeting were unaviodably late.  Why clutter the airwaves, incur charges and fumble with mental geography and time, speed, distance equations when a simple glance at the map shows both sides the current operational picture.

And yes, a small business owner waxed enthusuastic about how it allowed him to know where his emplyees were, without interrupting their day with continual “whare are you now calls.”  Some automatically seem to think the employees goal is to goof off and decieve their employer … I look at it as a way for the businessd, and hence the emploees, to have an easier, more productive day … and perhaps even make more money.  beleive it or not, the “freedom” to do an honets day’s work is one of the definitions our founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.

My thoughts on this pheno0menon are pretty well summed up by a quote from one of Ms. Holson’s sources … ‘Wow, this is great.‘

That’s my view on social GPS tracking, I’d love to hear yours. As always, I welcome comments, constructive criticisms, disagreements, questions or just plain talk. You can leave a comment to this article or email me direct at: davestarr (at) gmail (dot) com or call me on 1-719-423-8872. I’m usually on Yahoo messenger (davestarr) and will be happy to chat there. If you liked this article, please subscribe to my RSS feed so you get all my news and views.