SAN FRANCISCO—Google wants to make it easier for people to share their location, whether that be via the desktop or mobile. But it takes privacy seriously without going overboard with policies so draconian so as to turn off users.
That was part of the message from Steve Lee, a senior produce manager in charge of Google’s mobile Geo effort who spoke at the Frost & Sullivan Go Mobile conference yesterday. Lee described three factors in driving location based services (LBS): creating an accessible location platform, enabling an applications ecosystem and properly handling privacy. “It’s absolutely key to get the privacy right,” he said.
A few months ago, Google introduced Latitude for sharing location with friends and family. But it also heard from users who want to make their location known to all their Google buddies, and even some who want their location known to the world, he said.
So yesterday, Google released two applications for those who want to share their location with people who are not Latitude friends. Google Talk location status (beta) automatically updates a user’s Google Talk or Gmail client status message with the Latitude location. That way, chat buddies can see a user’s most recent city-level location.
The Google Public Location Badge lets users publish their location on a blog or Website.
The company’s blog talks about the new features here.
