Hide & Seek - Rafe Needleman
There are many new businesses that claim to shield online users’ privacy, preventing the network from knowing where they go and what they do. The problem with these products, as far as I can tell, is that they are either too difficult to use or don’t reveal their efficacy in any positive way to the user.Regardless, today’s privacy concerns are nothing compared with the uproar that will hit when the cell phone companies finally implement strong location services. Already they know, more or less, where your phone or Onstarequipped car is (as long as it’s on, that is — but how often do you turn your phone off?).
And while we aren’t receiving location-specific advertising on our phones yet, we. will When the live databases of cell phone customers’ locations is made available as a service, not only will new applications appear (like the location-sensitive buddy chat system in development by NomadIQ, whom I met with this week), but the privacy problem will suddenly get even more serious. I am sure there will be creative solutions to this (NomadIQ also has one of these in the works), and I truly hope that they are usable and comprehensible to the general public.
