The power and danger of geo-location

"Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies." This quote by Bill Gates emphasizes the importance given to privacy for both human beings and companies.
Geo-location is the process of finding, determining and providing the exact location of a computer, networking device or equipment. it enables device location based on geographical coordinates and measurements. With the consistent improving of technologies, geo-location is getting more useful and precise at the same time. You would thing that it is a good thing- well not not for everybody...



While geo-location potential and assets are numerous. Connected devices (smartphones, internet...) use geo-location. By requesting location information, the organizations in charge of those devices are able to send handful information to the customer. For instance this tool helps a smartphone user to know about the local weather, getting update on the local area traffic etc.
As we can imagine, geo-location has become an important focus for the mobile marketers. indeed, “Employing location-based marketing carries some additional costs, which is ultimately due to paying for specialist technology and skills,” says Scott Curtis, European mobile strategy and development director at Starcom Mediavest Group. When employed effectively, geo-location is a great tool, it allows particular audiences to be targeted on a large scale. “But it’s best used when overlaid with other attributes such as time of day,” explains Tom Twigg, head of strategy at M&C Saatchi Mobile. Furthermore with the sophisticated software available, geo-location  to find the position of your phone if you lost it. It's impact seems unlimited, and that's why it is also dangerous. 

Like stated earlier, geo-location has plenty of strengths, but those assets can also be seen as to intrusive. Its use can be really problematic if not used for the good purpose. Geo-location could become the "Big Brother" of our advanced society. Everybody remembers the famous George Orwell novel's nineteen eighty-four. In this novel the name big brother is used as a symbolic figurehead of a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party  ahd total power over the inhabitants. It is maybe exaggerated to describe geo-location as that dangerous. But in the fact, anything (good or bad) can be done with that technology.In the society that Orwell describes in his book, every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the slogan "Big Brother is watching you": a maxim which is ubiquitously on display. but theoretically the fact that we are using smartphones and have them close wherever we go can be considered as an obstacle of our privacy.
 "Big Brother is watching you"- that slogan gave goosebumps to all the readers- but now, geo-location is also watching us, and it could be a good or bad thing...