Latitude Mark II: All change and no change

A recent article on BusinessInsider reported the re-launch of Google’s location sharing feature as an update to Google Maps. Originally available as Google Latitude, the first version prompted a report highlighting the risks of inadvertently sharing personal location information. Although the location sharing options seem similar second time around, the focus seems to be on the benefits of sharing this type of information and as the article notes, although the privacy concerns haven’t away, they are a footnote rather than the headline.

What has changed in the intervening years appears to be the perceptions about sharing personal location information. Is this because consumers of such services heeded the warnings and shared with discretion so fears were unfounded, or because the risks were not as great as originally thought? Other location sharing applications, such as Glympse and Swarm, stayed the course and developed their niche products away from the spotlight that tends to focus on Google. Have these services paved the way for Google to try again? Whatever the reason, Google is confident enough of a favourable reception to re-release their location sharing technology as part of their flagship application.