Abstract
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Location based social networking (LBSN)
applications are part of a new suite of emerging social
networking tools that run on the Web 2.0 platform. LBSN is
the convergence between location based services (LBS) and
online social networking (OSN). LBSN applications offer users
the ability to look up the location of another “friend” remotely
using a smart phone, desktop or other device, anytime and
anywhere. Users invite their friends to participate in LBSN
and there is a process of consent that follows. Friends have the
ability to alter their privacy settings to allow their location to
be monitored by another at differing levels of accuracy (e.g.
suburb, pinpoint at the street address level, or manual location
entry). This paper explores the impact of LBSN upon society,
especially upon trust between friends. The study used focus
groups to collect data, and a qualitative approach towards
analysis. The paper concludes that while there are a great
many positive uses of LBSN, there are some significant
problems with current applications, and that better design is
required to ensure that these technologies are not exploited
against a user to commit harm.