Editor's Corner

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Comment: Why I'll never use Facebook Places

By Richard Evans
How old are you? What are your hobbies and interests? Are you single? Would you mind telling me your political views? These are all questions that the majority of Facebook's 26 million UK users freely offer the answers to. Last week saw the inception of a new question: Where are you? So should we be answering that question too? It's obviously a matter of preference. My preference is a wholehearted no. Here's why.
The rapid pace at which technology is evolving continues to raise sociological and ethical questions and no company is pushing the boundaries further than Facebook in that respect. With every modification, every enhancement, comes a new debate on privacy.
If you're a Facebook account holder then data about you is already being used so that companies can serve you with adverts that are relevant to you -
it's called targeted advertising. Imagine how valuable it would be to advertisers if they could find out - in addition to what they already know - not only which type of places you go to, but the exact stores, supermarkets, bars and restaurants. Companies would pay a high price to get their hands on that information. Step right up Facebook Places - the software that can make an advertiser's dreams come true.
Last weekend iPhone users will have noticed that there was a Facebook application update available for download. With this upgrade came the new opt-in service from the social giant. It has already launched in the US but the service won't start working in the UK for another couple of weeks.
If you're familiar with established geolocation services such as Foursquare or Gowalla, then Places is very similar: your smartphone will display a list of nearby venues for you to pick from and allow you to ‘check in' to the one you are currently visiting. Your location will then be broadcast to your Facebook friends - and advertisers, of course.
The difference between Places and other location services is that your Facebook friends can check you in to a location. If you don't want your friends to be able to do this, however, you can disable this feature. If you agree, you will be notified each time a friend checks you in and you're able to untag your location if you choose, but only after it has already been published on your wall - the same way Facebook serves photo-tagging.
Now, I'm not against all geolocation software; I use Foursquare as a way to see where a close group of my friends are and likewise to share my location with them when I choose. The difference is that on Foursquare I decide who sees my location and so I only allow four or five of my close friends that access. With Facebook Places that information would, under the default setting, be displayed to all 188 of my ‘friends' and I'd have to manually select or deselect friends I didn't want to know my location.
I would only consider roughly 25 people on my friend list to actually be current close friends of mine. The other 163 are all acquaintances, most of whom I went to school with and haven't seen this decade. Do I want all of these people to know where I am? Not on your Nellie, because - and excuse my pessimism - when people know where I am they will also know where I am not, i.e. at home. While I'm sure none of my close friends are looking to rob me blind, how can I be so sure about the people I haven't seen in the last ten years? Addresses are usually pretty easy to find off the back of information people display on Facebook and this has led to numerous incidents of burglaries in the past.
A more serious threat comes to youngsters who generally tend to be less stringent with who they befriend online. Some have friend lists consisting of thousands of people, many of whom they haven't even met. Although the Facebook Places service is restricted somewhat for people under the age of 18 this feature still has the potential to be hazardous to young adults.
Granted, while these threats to personal safety are real, they are likely to be rare. But what will affect all of us is the use of our personal data. Big companies are preying upon this new culture of social sharing and openness, which in reality is just another vehicle for them to peddle their latest products. Again, excuse my pessimism.
Leena Rao of technology site TechCrunch believes that Places will be a massive win for Facebook, which already has over 500 million users worldwide, because it means the company can tap into a new type of advertising. "By creating a social directory of local businesses, Facebook can turn on another massive revenue stream. We know that ad spending on Facebook is expected to be around $1.3bn (£837m) in 2010 but Places could boost this significantly as it lets Facebook tap into the market for local advertising."
What started as a fun way of communicating with other students at a Harvard dorm in 2003 has become one of the largest banks of personal information in the world, whose key business model is making money by using your data. Doesn't sound so fun any more, does it