Places – Stalker's Dream or Useful App?

Amid the customary whirl of controversy, this weekend saw Facebook launch its latest application - a new service called 'Places' which enables users to share their location via their news feed with the big, bad web.

Prompting fears over privacy and security that similarly surrounded Foursquare, Places now allows users to 'check in' and publish their location in real-time as well as searching for friends who might be in the vicinity; a useful feature when you're trying to organise big group get-togethers or off-the-cuff coffee dates.

As ever, critics are concerned that the new application could lead to a surge in crime - such as burglary - with over $100,000 worth of possessions having been stolen from American homes in Facebook-related incidents since the app was launched across the pond back in August.

Subsequently, insurance dealers such as Confused.com are predicting that people who frequently update their whereabouts online could see a sharp rise in the cost of their premiums while others could have their claims rejected if sensitive, personal information is found to have been willingly shared online; unaware that potential thieves could be monitoring their every click.

The UK's fearmongers have also begun banging the drums claiming the new service will allow children and vulnerable adults to play straight into the hands of paedophiles; the latter of which are believed to be delighted with the new app.

Naturally, Facebook were quick to come to the defence of the app saying: “Our products are modelled on how people are already using the site...We realised people were already posting where they were and who there were with every day.”

But if criminals taking note of your whereabouts wasn't bad enough, what about all those people you really, really don't want to bump into, you know, those psychotic ex-partners, self absorbed friends and prying mother-in-laws?

With Places to hand, the people we'd rather duck behind a wheelie bin from than have a chat with have even more reason to 'accidently' bump into you whilst doing the Tesco run or just 'happen' to turn up at the same pub.

On a positive note, while Places might take a bit of time to catch on there's plenty of scope in the pipeline for this little app; especially for businesses with location-based marketing strategies or even shops who want to create a buzz around sale time when the lure of a bargain and 50 or so friends checking in via their news feed making herd mentality hard to ignore.

Fast food heavyweight, McDonald's, even went so far as to boast about a 33% increase in footfall following a promotion on locations-based platform FourSquare, with the opportunity to win food vouchers after check-in acting as a bribe.

For the developers amongst us, there's also a Facebook Places API in the offing which allows you to scrape checkins, identify users and gather lots of lovely data about those checking in.

At the end of the day, Facebook Places is a choice - not a form of pre-release electronic tagging - which means for those of us who like a little privacy in our lives there's always the opportunity to opt out...whether it's possible to navigate the privacy controls to do so however is another point altogether.