Big Brother Lurking in WiFi, Mobile Services

[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR:Mike Langberg mike@langberg.com]
[Commentary] Google's high-profile proposal to provide free wireless Internet access throughout San Francisco is all about the three rules of real estate: Location, location, location. Google wants to create a new kind of online advertising where its network knows your precise location and displays ads for businesses within just a few blocks of wherever you are. That's OK with me. Letting Google tout a deli around the corner seems like a fair trade for getting free WiFi service. But there's a Big Brother risk in the emerging category of ``location-based services'' that isn't getting enough attention. Municipal WiFi networks, such as the one Google is proposing, could easily keep records on where users are connecting, and it's easy to imagine ways that information could be misused. We, as a society, need to set rules for the road. The debate needs to start now, because location-based services will start flooding into our lives within the next year. So it's up to all of us, as citizens and voters, to make sure the good parts of location-based services move forward, and the bad parts don't even get started.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/12939855.htm