Facebook Will Use 'Nearby Friends' Feature To Track Your Precise Location History
Your phone always knows where you are. And now, if you want, your Facebook friends, along with Facebook, will always know where you are, too.
By Sadho Ram — 20 Apr 2014, 10:54 AM — Updated over 10 years ago
Facebook is introducing a mobile feature called Nearby Friends that taps into that steady stream of location information so friends can track each other in real time
Facebook launched Nearby Friends on Thursday, a feature that allows users to see which friends are close by and share their location with others.
Image via mshcdn.comThe social network on Thursday announced Nearby Friends, a new feature built into Facebook's mobile app that allows you to see which of your friends are close by, and even share your exact location with others.
techcrunch.com
The feature could spell trouble for other location sharing apps like Foursquare and Google Latitude that haven’t reached ubiquity, as Facebook has built it into its core iOS and Android apps that have enormous userbases. It could also challenge the friend-gathering features of Highlight, Banjo, Sonar, Connect, and more startups.
recode.net
Nearby Friends was built by the Glancee location sharing app team That Facebook acquired in 2012
The new feature uses the geolocation technology in your smart phone to determine when you are close to one of your Facebook friends. When activated, the feature will send periodic notifications alerting you to friends who are nearby.
mashable.com
Users have been able to check in on Facebook for some time, meaning you can already share your location as part of a post, but Nearby Friends allows you to broadcast your general location to Facebook friends without posting at all.
techcrunch.com
The feature is opt-in, meaning you'll need to activate it within the app, should you choose to participate
Nearby Friends is opt-in so you can ignore it and never have to use it if you don’t want to. It’s only available to people over 18. It uses a reciprocal privacy model so you can only see your proximity to friends if you both have it turned on, and you can only see someone’s exact location if they purposefully share it with you.
gigjets.com
While you can select the specific list or group of friends you want to share your proximity with, many people may simply keep this visible to all their friends — a very wide net. This and how easy it is to forget to turn off Nearby Friends could lead to inadvertent “oversharing”.
techcrunch.com
Andrea Vaccari, the product manager for the new feature, says:
“The mission of Facebook is to connect people, to bring people together. Nearby Friends sort of pushes that forward by making it a little easier to find new opportunities to meet your friends while you’re out and about.”
mashable.com
Facebook, although is not using "Nearby Friends" to target ads yet, it admitted it will eventually use the "Location History" data for marketing purposes, according to Josh Constine of TechCrunch. He says:
"Facebook says it’s not using its new Nearby Friends feature to target ads yet, but after I asked why it’s tracking “Location History” it admitted it will eventually use the data for marketing purposes. This morning, the proximity sharing feature began rolling out to iOS users after it’s launch yesterday, and with it I discovered a new “Location History” setting that must be left on to use Nearby Friends."
techcrunch.com
"The description below the Location History setting in Nearby Friends reads “When Location History is on, Facebook builds a history of your precise location, even when you’re not using the app. See or delete this information in the Activity Log on your profile.” Notice the careful use of ‘builds a history’ instead of the scarier word ‘tracks’."
techcrunch.com
Josh further explains how Facebook will make money from your location data
Behind the Learn More link, Facebook explains that you can turn this tracking off but, “Location History must be turned on for some location feature to work on Facebook, including Nearby Friends.” It also notes that “Facebook may still receive your most recent precise location so that you can, for example, post content that’s tagged with your location or find nearby places.” So even if you turn it off, Facebook will still collect location data when necessary it did before Nearby Friends debuted.
techcrunch.com
If you leave it on, you’ll see your coordinates periodically added to your Activity Log. However, you’ll only see your Location History if you scroll to the bottom of the filter options and look at this category of data specifically. It’s a bit sketchy that these maps don’t show up in the default view of Activity Log like most other actions. It’s almost like Facebook is trying to discourage use of the Clear Location History button:
techcrunch.com
Luckily, Facebook says that putting Location History in the Activity Log "gives people a way to view and delete the underlying data"
It means you could use Nearby Friends with Location History turned on and then clear your history in the Activity Log to prevent that data from being used for marketing if you’re really concerned about that. The company explains that “When you hit delete we remove data from the user interface immediately and start working to permanently delete the data from the system.”
gigjets.com
How Nearby Friends Works
After turning on Nearby Friends, users are required to flip through a four-page tutorial that briefly describes the feature.
Image via mshcdn.comOnce you get the rollout of Nearby Friends, you’ll see it in their app list in the Facebook navigation menu under “More” on iOS or Android. From there you can opt in to turning Nearby Friends on, and select if you want to share your proximity with all your friends, or a specific friend list or group.
mashable.com
You’ll then be able to see a Nearby Friends list that shows the distance away in increments of a mile (<0.5 miles, 0.7 miles, 1.8 miles) from anyone you’re sharing your proximity with who has also opted in and turned on Nearby Friends. The list also shows timestamps of when someone’s location was last queried,and if you’re in a big city it will also show their neighborhood.
recode.net
Users can share their precise location with individual friends if they want to. Otherwise, friends will just see a general location.
Image via mshcdn.comNext to these friends’ names is a location icon you can tap to send that person your real-time location. You’ll get a chance to choose how long to share your location and include a 40-character message about what you’re doing or want to do, and perhaps a request that they send you their exact location. Otherwise you could send someone a Facebook message asking for them to send you their location. Anyone who shares their exact coordinates with you will show up on a map view.
techcrunch.com
What makes Facebook Nearby Friends different than competitors and could give it an advantage is that it’s centered around broadcasting proximity, not location. We’re much more willing to share how close to someone we are than where we are on a map, and it’s basically just as functional. If someone’s close, you’ll know, and can ping them about their precise location and meeting up.
mashable.com
Broadcasting location is creepy so we’re less likely to share it, and can cause awkward drop-ins where someone tries to come see you when you didn’t want them to. The product only works if lots of people are using it, and the focus on proximity makes it private enough that they might.
techcrunch.com
