Legal Research

Getting Lost

By Shaunna Mireau

A ZDNet article by Denise Howell caught my eye. It is titled Four legal predictions for Foursquare. David Canton mentioned foursquare in this recent post and Connie’s post about RockMelt and its integration of social media inspired me to write.

Foursquareand other location-based social networking tools offer an interesting service: easily find members in your community of interest. The privacy commissioner website offers another perspective on geolocation: unique rsks, mostly by a user not knowing what private information they are sharing.

Denise’s post sums up the legal issues for Foursquare as:

1. Location-savvy privacy standards and penalties
2. Service-side restrictions on employee check-ins
3. Employer-side restrictions on employee check-ins
4. Geo-located ?paper? trails as evidence

Along comes RockMelt. A browser in the cloud synced to a Facebook profile. How will this work for geolocation? If Facebook keeps my location private, does that mean my RockMelt experience will be different than if my privacy settings were more open? How will RockMelt deal with social location tools like Foursquare. What kind of impact will RockMelt add to the legal issues identified for Foursquare?

I have so many questions, and no answers. I requested access to RockMelt and double checked my Facebook privacy settings. Only time will tell if RockMelt can add to my browsing experience.

As frequent Slaw readers probably know, I live in the country which means that a google map search doesn’t work even if you know my specific rural address location. I do not have a land line so I am not in the telephone phonebook. I get my mail in a post office box. I do not mean to be hard to find though so if you want to come and visit, I will send you a map. Surprise! The map isn’t on my Facebook page.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 09, 2010 (boomark / email).