Zone-it before IT zones you: a location-based digital notice board to build community while preserving privacy

Abstract

The current success of ephemeral communication apps such as Snapchat points to the growing awareness among users about online ‘biographic mining’ through information technology by advertisers, companies and government agencies. Based on the literature, we argue that location-based services (LBS) can be the answer to preserving privacy, on the condition that they target trusted communities of anonymous users and that the communication is transient. The paper describes in three steps the development of an app fulfilling these conditions. From the interdisciplinary exchange between digital anthropologists, GIScientists and ICT engineers resulted Zone-it, a virtual notice board for self-zoning, permitting the user to start location-based interactions under certain categories. We present the results of a user survey that determined the app's functionalities. The functionalities offer a way for LBS to invert the purpose of social media such as Facebook by shifting attention from person-based to goal-oriented communication. The paper discusses why this move away from ‘faces’ to ‘places’ meets the purpose of community-building, rather than jeopardising it.

Keywords::

• location-based services
• ephemeral communication
• privacy
• self-zoning
• trust
• community-building
• VAMP networks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. ‘Google, Inc., Form 10-K, Annual Report, Filing Date Jan 26, 2012’. secdatabase.com.

^2.http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/11/google-to-sell-user-profiles-and-photos-in-ads/.

^3. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2092583/Google-hidden-Ad-Preferences-page-reveals-privacy-row-search-giant-thinks-knows-you.html#ixzz2mo3kHFXc.

^4.http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/08/15/the-next-step-in-mobile-circle-places-its-bet/2/; http://www.businessinsider.com/circle-iphone-app-2013-12?op = 1#ixzz2n9MXijl6.

^5.http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669488/circle-app-makes-gps-stalking-feel-less-like-stalking. Read on 15 January 2014.

^6.http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/09/what-is-circle-the-local-network-facebook-users-irked-by-constant-requests-4223242/.

^7.https://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#14/51.0581/3.7274.