Re: [Social-discuss] Half of social network users state privacy is #1 concern

[Bob Mottram]

On 16 July 2010 18:50, Melvin Carvalho <address@hidden> wrote:
> Two separate studies were conducted this week that suggest that social
> network and geolocation users are torn right down the middle when it comes
> to issues of privacy. Both studies showed that for about half of the
> respondents, privacy is their number one concern.


In my opinion geolocation is potentially quite dangerous if used in
public social networks.  If you do a search for terms such as "going
out", "leaving the house" or "won't be back until" on Twitter and
these messages are also geolocated then that provides useful
information to criminals who might want to carry out robberies.
Organized crime gangs could easily data mine this on an industrial
scale, and use it to very efficiently target their operations.

In many cases people may be disclosing information about themselves
which to them seems harmless, but could easily be exploited by those
with malevolent intentions.