Google Latitude
Google has announced yet another new feature called Google Latitude, which provides a means of tracking your friends, family members or employees using their mobile phone and a variation of Google Maps.
The geo-mapping technology has been available for several years, but like everything else that Google does, it has potential to bring this feature to the mass market.
Tech-savvy teens and other always-connected individuals may find the feature great for keeping track of where their friends and colleagues are by using the application on their mobile phone, but privacy and parents groups in the USA seem to be quite concerned over the privacy and security implications.
Google says the feature is meant to be used more in conjunction with social activities as opposed to big brother tracking your every move.
Last month, Search News reported on European Union pressure mounting against search engines amid concerns over Search Engine Privacy, and Union groups in Australia have previously been criticised over tracking employees’ every move, so it is uncertain if the technology may be used for the purpose of monitoring a mobile workforce.
The service is in it’s early stages at present, and it will be some, if at all before the product becomes mass market.
In the meantime, we can be sure Google will find some way of capitalising on the service, with potential of providing superior market research analytics and information about user behaviour and trends than perhaps any other social networking tool currently available on the web.
