New Phone Uses GPS To Locate Your Contacts

Salvance writes "Palo Alto-based Loopt Inc. has announced an agreement with Sprint Nextel to immediately begin offering their cell phone mapping service to all 3.8 Million Sprint Boost subscribers (Sprint Boost is a service specifically targeting the under-25 market). This service will notify users when another subscriber in their contact list is within 25 miles, providing a real-time map displaying their contacts' locations. According to the article, the only apparent privacy safeguard is to provide users the option to 'temporarily cut out from being spotted by their friends.' Given a retailer's propensity to package together extra services, and the average user's lack of knowledge regarding their phone's capabilities, this new service seems ripe for abuse."

Comments

Not really a privacy invasion:

[adamstew]

FTFA: "The real-time tracking would only occur for those who have agreed to be located and had given the user their mobile phone numbers." So you have to agree to be tracked in the first place.

Re:I hope that's configurable

[Salvance]

25 miles is the max distance, it looked like you could set the sensitivity down to 1/4 mile.