Thankfully Google Latitude Has Long Term Memory Loss [BerryReview]

via BerryReview.com by Ronen Halevy on 3/10/09

googlemapslatitudeWhen Google first introduced the Latitude friend locating feature in Google Maps for BlackBerry I was kind of worried. I do not consider myself overly-paranoid but Google already has a wealth of information about me. I was worried about them also storing everywhere I went every day! So I just set my location as static for the time being.

Luis let me know about a article on Wired detailing a new feature for Google Latitude. Total amnesia. :)

The idea is that Google will overwrite your old location with your new location and will not store a log of your old locations. That way nobody can subpoena or discover your historical location from Google. We have the Electronic Frontier Foundation to thank for this little update. It looks like the government has recently been asserting that it is entitled to location records even without a search warrant or wiretap order. Since Google no longer has this information there is nothing for them to give over…

As I said I am not overly-paranoid but now I don’t feel like I have somebody looking over my shoulder as much when using Google Latitude… Though my location is remaining static for now.

by Ben Pike