Google already knows if our paths have crossed

[Commentary] Google announced its new Your Timeline feature in Maps that lets you "view the places you’ve been on a given day, month or year." Like most things Google does, it feels a bit creepy, if not downright foreboding in the post-Snowden era. But like most Google services it’s also pretty fantastic when viewed optimistically. Right now Your Timeline is, as the name suggests, private and only visible to you. But it won’t be long before some enterprising developer (or even Google) offers a way for multiple people to compare location histories and identify dates and places where paths have crossed. Where chance encounters might have happened had fate intervened.

I can already guess the name: Our Timeline. It’s the big data equivalent of discovering your wife (as a toddler) lurking in the background of a childhood photo snapped at Disney World. Or that couple who unknowingly shared the same beach as kids 20 years before their marriage. Imagine a future where wedding invites arrive decorated with GIFs showing a couple’s divergent location histories merging to form a single path. Created automatically by Google Photos, of course, complete with slideshow.