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July 15, 2008
More Address Book Shenanigans From Yet Another Social Networking Service
“Tell you what: I’ll email YOU to remove my phone number from your database; then you can email ME to remove this fondue fork from your eye.”
— Merlin Mann on loopt
The “social networking” category at the App Store has 22 apps. There are several Twitter apps, AOL’s “gee, we can’t wait ‘til push services are enabled” IM client, Facebook and MySpace apps, and a number of others.
The location-finding functionality of the iPhone, which has GPS built in, is a big piece of several apps. Even if you have an iPod Touch, which doesn’t have GPS, the device can figure some things out from the WiFi access point you happen to be using. I got a very close fix on my location out on the far east side of town a few weeks ago, and I was connected to a WAP in somebody’s house … not a commercial one at a Starbucks or something like that.
Loopt is one such app. Here’s how it describes itself:
“Loopt shows users where friends are located and what they are doing via detailed, interactive maps on their mobile phones. Loopt helps friends connect on the fly and navigate their social lives by orienting them to people, places and events. Users can also share location updates, geo-tagged photos and comments with friends in their mobile address book or on online social networks, communities and blogs. Loopt was designed with user privacy at its core and offers a variety of effective and intuitive privacy controls.”
Unfortunately, Loopt also likes to invite your friends to play, in what Merlin Mann calls:
“… a very confusing piece of GUI in the Loopt iPhone app which apparently makes it trivially — even accidentally — easy to send SMS invitation spam to multiples of people whose mobile numbers live in your Address Book. At the recipient’s expense. And without prior permission. And, apparently, without user confirmation. [This is Bad.]”
He then offers the basic ingredients for a privacy nightmare scenario:
“Here’s one anecdote for you. Justine Ezarik — who’s had the bad fortune to have to change her phone number numerous times owing to creeps — is just one of the folks who unknowingly sent her phone number and exact location to ‘a large portion of [her] contact list’.
“I’ll give you a minute for that to sink in, because if you’re a connected person, you may want to ponder the consequences of unintentionally sending creepy bullshit to colleagues and business contacts who are too busy to care what you’re ‘geo-tagging’ at a given time. I know, because I’m one of them. Hi.”
There’s more, including an excerpt of Loopt’s privacy policy that managed to make me reparse the phrase “Loopt was designed with user privacy at its core” several times before giving up in disgust.
I am glad he seems to be agitated about this, though, because I’m sort of over the whole “only provincials and newbies end up spamming every single contact they have with an overzealous social networking recruitment tool” attitude. Merlin’s opinion matters to a layer of end user that thinks of itself as an opinion leader, and which is frequently found assuming that if something bad happens to you on the Internet, you probably had it coming.
Also, points for introducing me to the term “polo-shirting,” as in “if Loopt has something substantial to say about all this (beyond the solicitous spin mode they’re polo-shirting around in right now).”
Merlin has taken up the cause on Loopt’s Get Satisfaction board. Loopt’s responses are not particularly satisfactory.
Previously:
- Man Uses Facebook Address Book Tool, Goes to Jail
- Resolved: Feeding Your Address Book to Social Networking Sites Is Stupid and Rude
- Social Networking Site Quechup Makes No Friends
Posted by mhall at 3:12 PM | Add Comment
I'm Amanda and I work with Loopt. We just updated our blog with more information about this issue, take a look here: http://loopt.typepad.com/loopt/2008/07/sorry-everyone.html
Hi, it’s Amanda from Loopt again --
Loopt has released an update to fix this issue. More details can be found here: http://loopt.typepad.com/loopt/2008/07/get-new-version.html