Facebook to Launch Location Sharing

Facebook plans to reveal shortly their new location sharing services which will allow users to share their geographical location with their Facebook friends. The New York Times reported that Facebook has been working on this feature for over a year now. According to the article, Facebook will offer two location sharing aspects. One will provide users with the ability to update their location directly through Facebook and the other will be location sharing through other applications synced with other services like Foursquare, Loopt or Gowalla.

It appears that part of the preparation for this feature was already included in their revamped Privacy Policy which they released in November. The policy specifically states:

Location Information. When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post (for example, it is subject to your privacy settings). If we offer a service that supports this type of location sharing we will present you with an opt-in choice of whether you want to participate.

It will become even more important for users to fully understand their privacy settings and how to use them so they can be sure they are only sharing their location information with those who they want to see it.

There is some speculations that these features are intended to help Facebook go up against Google for small business and local business advertising.

How will you use Facebook’s location sharing features?

Tags: Facebook, location sharing, Privacy policy

Category: Facebook News