A Cornered Lot

Used to be that if you wanted to open a restaurant, the first order of business was not getting a trademark on Grandma's gourmet glumpky or creating a clever menu. It was location, location, location. But if you want to read about restaurants go to www.chowbaby.com. We serve wireless here. And in the wireless world location means… well, nothing yet, but just you wait.

Location-based technology offers the greatest potential for cool new communications services since the ITU turned CCIS into SS7. It also offers the greatest potential for broken dreams, frustration and privacy lawsuits since Food Lion won $5.5 million from ABC's Prime Time Live for using hidden cameras.

“The first time a stalker hacks into a location-based system and tracks someone, there will be hell to pay,” said Joel Groen, manager of business development for TeleCommunications Systems.

Don't doubt it. The American Society for Healthcare Risk Management cited a 3000% increase over the last decade in privacy lawsuits related to the electronic workplace.

So why bother? Is it that important that every time we pass within 50 yards of a Starbucks they push a coupon at us? No, but location services have their place. It might be nice to have my cell phone automatically reroute calls whenever I entered a church — if ever I were to enter one. And it would be helpful for the network to know how long I had been sitting on my favorite bar stool and automatically call me a cab.

However, we may never know the technology's true potential. “High-profile privacy issues could kill the location-based services market before it starts,” said Patrick Furlong, vice president of market strategy for Evolving Systems.

So maybe we should throw the gates wide open and rely on the personal profiles we create to manage our calls, messages and privacy. And if it's Big Brother you're afraid of, go back to www.chowbaby.com and remind yourself what living in a free-market society has to offer.