Microsoft: Consumers Should Think Twice Before Broadcasting Location
As more and more services tap into location-based data, consumers need to take steps to make sure they are aware just how broadly they are sharing that information. — That was one of several points stressed …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's warning arrives on Data Privacy Day 2011 and slots directly into the question raised a day earlier by GigaOM's look at whether location-based services are ready to turn the corner — coverage that found LBS adoption still held back by lingering safety concerns, likened to the ATM's slow early years. Microsoft's message reframes that hesitation from a consumer-fear story into a data-governance one: the problem isn't just that people worry about broadcasting location, it's that they often don't realize how broadly services share it.
The ReadWriteWeb syndication framing the warning as part of how five big companies marked Data Privacy Day shows this is coordinated corporate advocacy rather than an isolated statement — a platform vendor with no leading consumer LBS product positioning itself as the privacy-conscious voice while the location app ecosystem scales.
First-order effects
- Consumers using check-in and location-aware apps face direct pressure to audit default settings, since Microsoft's point is that sharing breadth exceeds user awareness — a burden that lands on the least technical users.
- Location-based service providers now have a named, high-profile critic framing their core mechanic (broadcasting position) as something requiring consumer caution, raising the reputational cost of opaque defaults.
Second-order effects
- App developers and marketers who treat location as free contextual fuel will face pressure toward explicit opt-in flows and clearer permission language if the big-platform privacy framing sticks.
- Rival platform vendors get a template to copy: tying privacy messaging to calendar moments like Data Privacy Day lets any player claim the trust high ground without conceding product ground.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, location becomes the test case for a broader permission-boundary norm — where industry self-policing on data sharing either preempts or invites regulator involvement in geodata practices.
- Consumer trust, already cited as the brake on mainstream LBS adoption, hardens from a marketing concern into a structural input: whoever solves legible consent controls could unlock the mainstream usage that safety fears have kept marginal.
The trend: Location data is moving from a novelty feature to a governed asset class, with platform vendors' privacy warnings foreshadowing a consent-driven market for geolocation information.