New report analyzes online location privacy

More and more, the Internet knows where you are. In a new study, three scholars at UC Berkeley's School of Information analyze implications of new online geolocation standards.

More and more, the Internet knows where you are. Smartphone apps recommend nearby restaurants, social-networking sites tell your friends where to find you, and even advertising tries to highlight local businesses.

But revealing your physical location online comes with a potential dark side; it may leave you vulnerable to stalkers or to websites like pleaserobme.com/, and it may reveal more of your private information than you anticipate.


"Location is a particularly sensitive piece of information," explained Doty. "Your location reveals details about you that are potentially very personal: where you live, or what doctor you visit, or what you bank you use. And it also opens you to physical intrusion; a stalker — or a police officer — could use this location information to find where you are right now."

Mulligan offered another example. "Remember when Paris Hilton's cell phone was stolen? It revealed all of her calling patterns and all of her friends. Imagine if it also had Loopt on it: it would have told you where all of her friends were. Whoever had her phone would have been able to follow her friends around."

Is there even anyway to keep your privacy these days? Short of disappearing into the woods?

The report provides a web page (npdoty.name...) that demonstrates how the geolocation API works. When accessing the page from a GPS-enabled smartphone, the page can log your exact physical location and pinpoint you on a map. Even from a non-GPS enabled web browser, the page often identifies your general location. The demonstration page — unlike almost all of the sites studied — describes its use of location information in its privacy policy.

www.physorg.com...

There is also great documentary on google if you haven't seen it. It goes fairly in depth about all the things google knows about you. It also talks about what it does to protect your privacy. I'll leave it up to you to decide if you think your privacy is safe.