Forget Facebook, here come’s “Placebook”

SearchCompliance.org’s Alexander Howard summarizes a recent Congressional hearing on location-based services and online privacy here.

Mobile applications that use geolocation data have been rapidly adopted as the use of smartphones has exploded. “The emerging check-in model is moving from active to passive location sharing,” said Tony Bernard, vice president and general manager of Colorado-based Useful Networks, a provider of location technology products and services. Bernard provided location-based social networks BrightKite, Foursquare and Gowalla as examples of this trend.