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EVENTS
Google Maps now able to tell your friends EXACTLY where you are
Have you ever been lost looking for your friends? If you have, then Google may have a solution for you.
Google have unveiled a new feature for Google Maps called “location sharing,” which lets you reveal your exact location to a contact for a certain period of time.
This can be from 15 minutes to three hours.
This new feature can also be used to share a driving or walking route if you happen to be travelling from one place to another, which would allow your friends to see your progress.
This can be convenient for those who are running late to a meeting or it can be used to show your friends a route as opposed to continuous updates.
As well as this, the feature also lets you do other things related to your friend’s location. You could get directions to lead you to them, or find restaurants around them.
Your location can be shared either directly through the Google Maps app, or via a short link sent to a friend through a text.
For sharing your location, you can use an iPhone or Android phone, and to track someone else’s location, you can also use the mobile web and desktop computers.
Google have forever aimed to make Google Maps more than just a app for maps and directions, looking to help users any way possible. This is the reason for instalments like local recommendations, information on how busy a restaurant is in real time and a way to not forget where you have parked.
Jen Fitzpatrick, Google’s vice president of geo, local and maps, said “We're shifting from our job being mapping the world to our job being mapping your world.”
The obvious limitation which comes to mind over this new feature however, is certain users may be able to use it to remotely stalk others.
"To be very clear, location sharing is a technology that already exists out there in the world, and has for a very long time," Fitzpatrick said when asked about the issue. "It's already the case that anybody with, shall we say, bad intentions can already find many other apps and means out there to do location sharing. We don't feel like we're necessarily changing the game on what's possible here."
It is still unclear as to what the app would do to prevent such a situation.
Google have continuously aimed to understand dangers of online privacy, by doing research with CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse) as well as other advocacy groups, before releasing products such as location sharing.
Google are certainly no strangers to developing something which involves location sharing, in December they announced an app called Trusted Contacts, which allows you to share your location or route with someone, if you feel you may be in danger.
We wait to see how this new feature would impact us, but I guess for those who have a tendency of losing your friends, this may be helpful to you. Afterall we all have those friends.
