Facebook to launch ‘app to track friends’ in March

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http://www.todayonline.com/tech/facebook-creates-app-track-friends

Facebook is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, bolstering efforts to benefit from growing use of social media on mobile computers.

The app, scheduled for release by mid-March, is designed to help users find nearby friends and would run even when the program is not open on a handset, said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified because the plans are not public.

Facebook is adding features to help it profit but it may also raise the hackles of consumers and privacy advocates concerned about the company’s handling of personal information. Apple and Google have similar tools for continuously keeping tabs on user whereabouts.

Mr Derick Mains, a spokesman for Facebook, declined to comment.

The team developing Facebook’s location software is being led by Mr Peter Deng, a product director who joined from Google in 2007, one source said. The group also includes engineers from Glancee, a location-tracking startup Facebook acquired in May, and Gowalla, a location-based social network whose assets were purchased in December 2011, the source added.

Facebook already records the GPS coordinates of users when they post status updates or photos from their phones, or check in to a venue. With the new app, the company would go a step further by tracking user whereabouts in the “background” of Apple’s mobile operating system, even when other programs are running or the phone is not in use, one source said.

While Facebook would probably need to ask permission from users to track their location to be in accordance with Apple’s guidelines for developers, Facebook may have already gotten consent from its users to run such a feature.

Facebook’s data-use policy tells users that the company may use information on location “to tell you and your friends about people or events nearby, or offer deals to you that you might be interested in.” The company said it may also put together data “to serve you ads that might be more relevant”.