Facebook checks in to new privacy concerns

Facebook finally checked in to the location-enabled social networking arena this week with the introduction of Facebook Places. The new service--limited for now to Facebook's wildly popular iPhone application and mobile browsers supporting HTML5 and geolocation--enables users to share their current whereabouts in real time via mobile device by checking in at area destinations; the solution also identifies contacts who've chosen to check in nearby, with Places-related action creating stories in friends' News Feeds as well as showing up in the Recent Activity section of that location's Facebook page. Facebook Places effectively positions the undisputed kingpin of the social media realm against a wave of location-based mobile services like Foursquare and Gowalla, although both startups tell The New York Times they see the new service as a complement to their own efforts: "We'll wait to see what the product looks like, play around with it and see if its something we want to integrate with," said Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, while Gowalla CEO Josh Williams said he envisioned Facebook Places as "an opportunity for additional distribution of our service," confirming Gowalla will integrate its application with the new initiative.

Privacy advocates aren't looking on Facebook Places quite as fondly. Facebook stresses that users control just how much Places information they share--consumers are given the choice whether or not to share their location when they check in, with all updates limited exclusively to existing friends. Users can also tag friends who are with them, although those users must first activate the Places service--if a user is tagged, Facebook sends a notification to that effect. The service additionally offers a series of more restrictive, customizable privacy settings. The American Civil Liberties Union maintains that's far from enough: On its website, the ACLU states "In the world of Facebook Places, 'no' is unfortunately not an option. Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say 'yes' to allowing your friends to check in for you. But when it comes to opting out of that feature, you are only given a 'not now' option (a.k.a. ask me again later). 'No' isn't one of the easy options... And if you use Places yourself, you aren't even given a 'not now;' you're just told that friends are able to check-in for you and left to discover for yourself that you can change this setting by digging into your privacy controls."

Facebook Places arrives in the midst of an ongoing debate over privacy's place in an increasingly connected world. Earlier this year, Facebook responded to growing privacy concerns by introducing new, simplified controls promising to help users better understand what kind of information they're choosing to share--soon after, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared at the annual D8 conference, looking visibly uncomfortable while answering questions about the upgraded policies. "There have been misperceptions that we are trying to make all information open," Zuckerberg said at one point. "That's completely false." But for the most part he rambled, frequently sidestepping direct questions about what exactly Facebook is trying to do instead. Facebook Places' larger objective seems transparently clear, however: It's all about driving advertising revenues, leveraging the myriad possibilities inherent in targeting consumers based on their present location.

Facebook isn't the only digital Goliath facing questions about its privacy policies. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt admits the company knows "roughly who you are, roughly what you care about [and] roughly who your friends are," but contends privacy legislation is unnecessary because its continued success depends on respecting user boundaries, forecasting consumers will abandon its services if Google does anything with personal information they find "creepy." But Schmidt then goes off an unexpectedly Orwellian tangent: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he says, even speculating that in the future, young people reaching adulthood will be entitled automatically to change their names to distance themselves from youthful indiscretions documented for posterity on social media sites. Schmidt's prediction may seem extreme, but point taken: The privacy debate will only grow more heated from here. The biggest threat to Facebook's future isn't rival social networking services--it's Facebook itself, and the decisions it makes moving forward. -Jason