Fire Eagle Eyes Are Watching You

Fire Eagle, a new location platform launched on August 12 by Yahoo! developers, is a creepy tool that could transform every site on the Web. In general, Fire Eagle is a place that Geolocation data goes and was developed as a way to make Web sites more geographically aware and personalized. That means the service can track your location, based on your preferences for sharing information, and then allow for communications between other Web services. Fire Eagle employs a set of APIs that social networks use to share data.

"Our job is to make it possible for any service online to respond to your location — we're here to play with other social networks to help you make the best use of your location information," the developers say in their blog. Since the beta phases begain last March, a number of high-profile services, including Dopplr, Brightkite, Movable Type, and Pownce have implemented Fire Eagle through the numerous APIs Yahoo provides.

For most users, the question remains simple: do I really want others to know where I am at any given moment? Sure, sharing your exact location may work for friends, family and, especially, in emergency situations. The question may then turn to "what do you have to hide?" In other words, once your data is published on the Internet, it's really hard to get it back.

The problem is that privacy policies across the Web are all very different and using a service through a third party could raise some real issues. Some blogs note, however, that while users can purge information from Fire Eagle, this will not delete location data collected over time. This means that users will have to actually learn how Fire Eagle works and what to turn off and what to turn on.

Fire Eagle's code of conduct for developers stipulates that they must be up-front and transparent when they explain to users how they will use the information, including what ad networks they might share it with.



There are many added benefits and opportunities for advertisers that location information offers. Fire Eagle makes it easier to connect the online and offline consumers and target their preferences. For instance, a search engine could do a more precise job of retrieving locally relevant results for gas, food and lodging. This concept is great if someone is traveling but developers must stick to the code of conduct and not bombard users with spam.

A real benefit also exists in providing more relevant local news and information. Fire Eagle extends to mobile Web sites and could provide users with great information about a certain geographical area, including real estate, school and crime data. With this, however, users come a step closer to the geo-targeted ad. Honestly, when you need information in a hurry, do you need to be pinged with a coupon?

As for the social networks, having the ability to know where people are physically could be especially useful for planning social events. Still, Yahoo! will be haunting by the notion of becoming "Big Brother" on the Web, which is an obvious connotation that stems from any type of geotracking technology.

Before signing up, read carefully the Yahoo! privacy policy. For more information, visit http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/ or just feel the buzz of the blogosphere.

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