Tell HN: Track my location? Bring it on, I say...

I am hoping that we get more and more of "Apple tracks my location" or "Creepy can show you what your stalkers knew all these days", "Debt collectors using FB to spam people who owe" which shows the "boiling frog syndrome" that we all fall prey to. The general public have long turned a blind eye to privacy, even though the last five years have brought tools that compel us to share our most intimate details publicly (knowingly or unknowingly) and by giving One in Two among us a GPS (by end of 2011). Color with its implicit social graph and FB Events with its "Go ahead and tag anyone else at the event you know" which shouts out my location even though I may not have wanted to check in or share, has pushed us uncomfortably closer to a future that we may not fully understand or even want.

But I am hoping that with more awareness being brought on by these screw ups (intentional or otherwise) may finally be the reason for the frog to leap out of the tepid water. I don't believe we will give up the benefits of sharing our location completely for the sake of privacy. We (and that's a broad WE) will need to strike that healthy balance that protects me, puts me back in the drivers seat, and puts location on the same level as my SSN (dont laugh!).

The least desirable route in my opinion would be the regulatory route, where "Prescient" Uncle Sam dictates the rules. Which is why today's technology companies must collaborate in protecting the privacy of their customers, and build that in today. For them, an empty boiling pot or a dead frog, both are compelling reasons to change their ways today.