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Phone GPS Makes People Easier to Find...

Posted Oct 23, 07 1:58 PM CDT in Technology 

(Newser) – There’s nothing like Loopt for meeting up with friends. Loopt, and social-mapping programs like it, broadcast your cellphone’s location to other users, a useful service the New York Times says, with troubling privacy implications. “There is a Big Brother component,” said one analyst. “If my friends can find me, the telephone company knows my location all the time, too.”

Though currently popular mostly with college students, 55% of phones can run social-mappers. That’s great for coordinating meetings, or keeping track of an Alzheimer’s patient, the Times says, but what if an employer asks you to use it? Or a spouse? “There are privacy risks we haven’t begun to grapple with,” said one lawyer.

Source New York Times

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A model shows Japan's mobile communication operator KDDI's new mobile phone 'Junior - A5525SA' with GPS device to keep children safe, produced by Sanyo Electric during a press preview in Tokyo, 10 January...   (Getty Images)
A visitor walks past a giant model of a handset displayed during a Telecoms exposition held in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007. China's already huge mobile communications market is expected to...   (Associated Press)
%u201CWe seem to be getting into a period where people are closely watching each other,%u201D said on lawyer. %u201CThere are privacy risks we haven%u2019t begun to grapple with.%u201D   (Shutterstock)
Pharos' Nav-Savvy Smartphone, the GPS phone 600. (PRNewsFoto/Pharos Science & Applications, Inc.)   (Associated Press)
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Boost Mobile - New Boost Loopt Commercial   (ebrooks714 (YouTube))
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