A friend of mine recently introduced me to the recent application, Google Latitude. This app allows a user to identify exactly where their friends/family are located, by pin pointing on a map. For example, if I were to travel from Brooklyn, NY to Princeton, NJ, a friend of mine can follow my exact route and traveling progress with a dot that moves along the map as I drive (and yes, this actually happened). Can you say creepy? 

 

Yes, initially it sounds a bit disturbing. I was very skeptical of the situation. However, after reading more about this, I felt slightly better about it. There are several security settings you can apply to your profile. First off, if you are invited by someone, you do not have to accept the invitation; you can decline to share your information. Second, if you do choose to participate and decide one day you do not want others to know exactly where you are, you can set it to say something else. For instance, if I vacation in Florida for the week, I can set it to say Portland, Rhode Island. You are also able to hide your location, therefore, no one can detect where you are.

 

I could probably list a few cons regarding Latitude, but one pro I actually can think of is if you have children. You'll always know where they are in case of an emergency. Plus, it could also prevent some fibbing on their part.

 

Like I said, after researching the application, it seems pretty well regulated. If I had children it'd be a different story but for now I think I'll just stay out of it.