This is sure
to exacerbate fears that Facebook will further exploit Instagram now that its
founders have resigned. Instagram has been spotted prototyping a new privacy
setting that would allow it to share your location history with Facebook.
That
means your exact GPS coordinates collected by Instagram, even when you’re not
using the app, would help Facebook to target you with ads and recommend you
relevant content. Worryingly, the Location History sharing setting was
defaulted to On in the prototype. The geo-tagged data would appear to users in
their Facebook Profile’s Activity Log, which include creepy daily maps of the
places you been.
This
commingling of data could upset users who want to limit Facebook’s surveillance
of their lives. With Facebook installing its former VP of News Feed and close
friend of Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, as the head of Instagram, some critics
have worried that Facebook would attempt to squeeze more value out of
Instagram. Tat includes driving referral traffic to the main app via spammy
notifications, inserting additional ads, or pulling in more data. Facebook was
sued for breaking its promise to European regulators that it would not
commingle WhatsApp and Facebook data, leading to an $122 million fine.
A Facebook
spokesperson tells the Media that “To confirm, we haven’t introduced updates to
our location settings. As you know, we often work on ideas that may evolve over
time or ultimately not be tested or released. Instagram does not currently
store Location History; we’ll keep people updated with any changes to our
location settings in the future.” That effectively confirms Location History
sharing is something Instagram has prototyped, and that it’s considering
launching but hasn’t yet.
The
screenshots come courtesy of mobile researcher and frequent TechCrunch tipster
Jane Manchun Wong. Her prior finds like prototypes of Instagram Video Calling
and Music Stickers have drawn “no comments” from Instagram but then were
officially launched in the following months. That lends credence to the idea
that Instagram is serious about Location History.
Located in
the Privacy and Security settings, the Location History option “Allows Facebook
Products, including Instagram and Messenger, to build and use a history of
precise locations received through Location Services on your device.”
A ‘Learn
More’ button provides additional info (emphasis mine):
“Location History is a setting that allows
Facebook to build a history of precise locations received through Location
Services on your device. When Location History is on, Facebook will
periodically add your current precise location to your Location History even if
you leave the app. You can turn off Location History at any time in your
Location Settings on the app. When Location History is turned off, Facebook
will stop adding new information to your Location History which you can view in
your Location Settings. Facebook may still receive your most recent precise
location so that you can, for example, post content that’s tagged with your
location. Location History helps you explore what’s around you, get more
relevant ads, and helps improve Facebook. Location History must be turned on
for some location feature to work on Facebook, including Find Wi-Fi and Nearby
Friends.”
As part of a
2011 settlement with the FTC over privacy violations, Facebook agreed that
“Material retroactive changes to the audience that can view the information
users have previously shared on Facebook” must now be opt-in. But since
Location History is never visible to other users and only deals with data
Facebook sees, it’s exempt from that agreement and could be quietly added. Most
users might never dig deep enough into their privacy settings to turn the
opt-out feature off.
Delivering
the exact history of where Instagram users went could assist Facebook with
targeting them with local ads across its family of apps. If users are found to
visit certain businesses, countries, neighborhoods, or schools, Facebook could
use that data to infer which products they might want to buy and promote them.
It could even show ads for restaurants or shops close to where users spend
their days. Just yesterday, we reported that Facebook was testing a redesign of
its Nearby Friends feature that replaces the list view of friends’ locations
with a map. Pulling in Location History from Instagram could help keep that map
up to date.
Sources told
the Media that Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the
company following increasing tensions with Zuckerberg about dwindling autonomy
of their app within the Facebook corporation. Systrom apparently clashed with
Zuckerberg over how Instagram was supposed to contribute to Facebook success,
especially as younger users began abandoning the older social network for the
newer visual media app. Facebook is under pressure to keep up revenue growth
despite it running out of News Feed ad inventory and users switching to Stories
that advertisers are still acclimating to. Facebook is in heated competition
with Google for last-mile local advertising and will take any advantage it can
get.
Instagram
has served as a life raft for Facebook’s brand this year amidst an onslaught of
scandals including fake news, election interference, social media addiction,
and most recently, a security breach that gave hackers the access tokens for 50
million users that could have let them take over their accounts. A survey of
1,153 US adults conducted in March 2018 found that 57 percent of them didn’t
know Instagram was owned by Facebook. But if Facebook treats Instagram as a
source of data and traffic it can strip mine, the negative perceptions
associated with the parent could spill over onto the child.
Comments