A lot of people are worried about how Smartphones are now being used. Their worries come especially from localization and personal data saved on the Internet. In fact, one cannot be sure of what the internet has saved about a user, and what data can be used by who.
Take Highlight, for example. It is a new social network application that is available for every smartphone.
Its goal is to know who is next to you at a certain time. It’s like foursquare (a famous social network where you note your locations with a mobile phone and can find out where friends are, but it is using Facebook and your localization service all the time.
According to the start up itself:
“If someone is standing near you also has Highlight, his or her profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with that person. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.”
It is supposed to run in the background quietly. But the fact is, it uses a lot of your battery because of the monitoring of your position.
Highlight seems to have done a huge buzz in the USA because people over there love this kind of apps where they can know who is doing what, at what time, with who – like foursquare, banjo and Glancee for example- but It is not quite sure that it would do the same buzz in France. Look at Foursquare, everybody is using it in the USA, but in France, only a few people use it. People don’t seem to see in this app a certain need. And moreover, a lot of French people don’t want others to spy on them and want to be free to do whatever they like without constantly be tracked and inscribe on the internet. Because everything is recorded on it.
The question of the popularity of such apps in France is interesting. The USA hasn’t known denouncement or the collaboration time. But French people have. And French people, as a lot of european people, have been taught in school, that their grandparents have fought to win liberty, to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Those apps seem to be a unconscious threat to this freedom because everyone knows, that, at the end, everything is recorded, and that you are not free to do what you want without people knowing. The US people don’t think like that, because for them, liberty has a different way of express itself. You have the right to tell the world what you are doing, where, with who … This is their way to express freedom. This is certainly why locations apps are so famous in the USA and not so much in Europe (even if among young people and 2.0 generation, those apps make the buzz). The problem is cultural not financial or anything else.
Those are the worries. Some firms have information about us that could be used against us in the future. They could be black mailed weapons. As we have seen Facebook bought Instagram. A lot of people protested about it and deactivated their Intagram accounts, what would be the consequences of Facebook buying Highlight. Would Facebook turn into the new Big Brother?
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3 réponses à “Spotted, You’re on Highlight!”
I understand that this App is currently only available for iPhones, unlike Glancee which launched its Android version in March this year. This also may be a cause of its unpopularity in Europe. I also consider that this App won’t be very popular in countries where high rates of kidnapping exist like in Latin America.
Concerning battery drainage, the application can be put on “Pause” which turns off the location services and makes you invisible saving some battery life.
I am not a fan of this type of App not only because of the privacy issues or battery consumption but because I prefer leaving some things to chance like meeting people or bumping into someone you know. But maybe I am just old-fashioned!
In your article you talk about one category of location services. You talk about social mapping apps. Apps that allow mobile users to check in specific places and to see their friends’ locations on a map. Programs such as “Foursquare”, “Find My Friends” and “Facebook Places”. Personally, I think that these programs can be very dangerous. Everyone, even strangers, can see your location, where you are and what you are doing… There is no privacy at all.
Even though there are other categories of location services that can be very useful.
For example people locators and trackers programs such as “Gone Out-Later Folks” and “I’m OK”. Programs that allow parents to know where their children are, when they arrive and leave a destination. These programs give parents some peace of mind. Or navigation programs, such as “Google Maps” and “Around Me”. Programs that provide routes and directions and that display places of interest nearby. These ones can also be very useful, especially when you are lost.
Finally, geocaching games that work like giant treasure hunts. Games where users use their GPS to hide or to find items and they share their adventures on-line. Very creative and funny games that help kids to learn navigation skills.
Of course, these programs can also have some disadvantages. Everyone is free to decide if he wants to use these kinds of services or not!
I totally agree that this is a matter of culture. US people have the attitude that is important that people know where they are and with whom they are at any time just to know the degree of popularity or “coolness” of the person and here in Europe people don’t care so much about that. In my case, I appreciate very much my privacy, so I wouldn’t use this kind of app.
Also, in Venezuela this would be a gift for thieves and kidnappers, so I don’t think it’d be very popular there!