AT&T Introduces Particularly Creepy FamilyMap Snooping Service

[NYC Liberal]

AT&T Introduces Particularly Creepy FamilyMap Snooping Service
AT&T now offers a $10/month plan that gets you the realtime location of two of your plan's phones ($15/month for five). But unlike other family trackers, this one doesn't appear to need parental permission/notification.

One of our editors tried it out, and was able to track members of his family without them knowing—and without his knowing the master password to the AT&T account. You just create a separate login for the service.

When http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/04/14/att-launches-familymap-service-lets-you-spy-on-anyone-anywhere/">Boy Genius tried it, they tracked phones totally silently, that is, without the phones receiving any indication of being observed. Also, BGR mentioned that the service was able to access GPS position data on phones that had GPS—it wasn't just triangulating the phones using cell towers.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5212251/att-introduces-particularly-creepy-familymap-snooping-service">Link

I'd say that while I guess this could be good for something, I really can't get past the creep factor.
If you really can't trust your kids/spouse/whoever, I'd say there are bigger issues.

[imdjh]

1. It all comes down to who owns the phone/account.

I don't really see a creep factor to it, because everyone has either expected this development or been certain that it already exists. TV cops shows would lead you to believe that the government has had this ability for years.

Parents have a right to know where their kid and their car is. I was a "basically good" kid, but I did a lot of stupid stuff, and I also lied about where I was and who I was with with some regularity. At sixteen I was out in bars when I was officially spending the night at a friend's house. The fact that my parents didn't have me on a tighter leash didn't improve my life or goal realization in any way I can determine.

From a couple standpoint, I watched an interesting speech on this some time ago. I think it was Joel Whathisname or one of the other TV preachers. He was talking about trust in a marriage, and he said that it wasn't as simply as being trustworthy, it was also important to build and affirm trust in your spouse. Hey, just because he's a TV preacher doesn't mean he can't be right about something. So I can see a spouse saying, "Hey, let's do this!" under the pretext of not worrying if someone is overdue, not for infidelity but normal (largely female) worry. My mother could drive a saint to distraction with her "worrying" and I can know in my heart that "worry" is actually a control mechanism in many people (including my mother) but some people really are or think they are lefitimately experiencing worry. Of course, it doesn't really ensure trust; the same technology which tells Bob that Jim is right where he's supposed to be at 7PM also tells Bob that he has a good hour before Jim can possibly walk through the front door.

By the way, they rent kid trackers at amusement parks now. Also, last night I saw a new product being offered to children of aging parents who want to track their parents, especially those with senility or other mental problems.

An amusing aside- while I was reading the OP there was an ad aimed at trivia junkies destined to ruin (or enhance depending upon POV) bar bets and trivia games. You can now text a question to this service and they will answer the question for you in text. It's called, (are you ready?) KGB.