[tab name=’News’]
You’d have to be very eagle-eyed to have spotted Facebook’s latest feature ‘Find Friends Nearby’, which launched earlier today and has since been removed.
The feature caused a huge stir earlier today, reaching the top ten worldwide Trending Topics on Twitter shortly after launching. Although many are probably blissfully unaware anything changed, those who learnt about Find Friends Nearby were instantly concerned over privacy issues.
Find Friends Nearby does exactly what you think it does; you can view your existing Facebook friends’ locations, which are obtained via GPS. Perhaps more worryingly, the app allowed you to view people you might know – so your location could be broadcast and viewable to many more people than most would like.
According to Facebook the feature should never have become public, and was supposed to be limited to use by only a few developers. The feature apparently started life as a Hackathon project by Facebook Developer Ryan Patterson. Just how such an unfinished and raw feature made its way to the public remains to be seen, but we’re certain somebody at Facebook HQ will be in some sort of trouble.
The feature leaked yesterday when the website FriendShake went online, however since that the URL m.facebook.com/friendshake has been changed to show a blank page.
A spokesperson for Facebook explained the issue to ABC News earlier today,
“This wasn’t a formal release — this was something that a few engineers were testing. With all tests, some get released as full products, others don’t. Nothing more to say on this for now — we’ll communicate to everyone when there is something to say.”
It’ll be interesting to see if such a feature will ever see the light of day, especially after the concerns it’s already raised. Being able to “check in” and view where your friends are hanging out is one thing – and existing software such as Google’s Latitude already do this well – but being able to view the location of people you aren’t already ‘friends’ with on Facebook is concerning on several levels.
Then again, Find Friends Nearby is clearly an experimental feature that wasn’t due to go public for some time to come.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
[/tab]
[end_tabset]