Google's approach is most interesting. Take a look at www.wizzwifi.com - these guys take it a stage further and link free wifi to corporate loyaty programs. Seems to me that WizzWifi would work in San Francisco too without Google.

WiFi tracking is a WOLF in a hen's suit put in charge to watch over the chicken's coop. The "100 feet away from a business" is the sucker's lollipop. Think about it. Take for example some of the biggest web-based money making businesses: newegg.com, amazon.com, ebay.com, half.com, etc. It doesn't make an iota of difference to their business how many pedestrians walk by in front of their "store front"--hell, they don't have any store fronts: or does anybody think eBay has showrooms in some building in some town/city? No. For web-based businesses "tracking within 100 feet of the store" is useless. On the other hand: TRACKING THE CUSTOMER ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE makes 100% sense! And why should they be held to a "100 feet" constraint when they are crying at the top of their lungs "BUT WE'RE WEB-BASED! WE HAVE NO BUILDING!" And of course Google/Earthlink will sheepishly oblige and will reply with a *wink*wink* and a nod: "That's right! You are a web based business: you can track the customer all you want . . . geah". Now, think about this: what's there to prevent a mob hit team from opening a web site and getting the customer tracking services of Google/Earthlink? Or what's there to prevent an obssesed boyfriend from doing the same and track every movement of the object of his "affection"? SCARY, AIN'T IT? Glad to paint a picture for ya. __Weepkis__

Here is why it is a benefit for Amazon.com etc to know where I am: Let's say I have logged on while sipping a latte at my local Barnes and Noble Cafe. Amazon will have that location tagged and send me an ad underselling a book that might be 10 feet away from me and offering me free shipping if I order before leaving. Ebay will give me ads where ever I am: "Looking for (insert product group of closest retailer they can undersell here)? Try Ebay!" I assume retailers will set up exclusive area ad rights with Google so that only B&N can advertize on computers used in their stores. Imagine being in B&N and getting a coupon offer if I get up and buy a book on the shelf right now: "Get 20% off the new MI3 DVD (directly to your left). This ad will self-destruct in three minutes.

Weepkis do you really think that google/earthlink two major companies are going to commit suicide by giving out information like your current location to buisnesses? No, all the article is saying is that there will be a whole lot of annonymous little dots and when you open your web browser you'll see an ad from a local establishment. The only people who will be able to locate you is google and earthlink and I'm not very scared of them.

The Personal Lojack has arrived, not just for minor felons in home custody. Lesseee, what are other commercial applications? Nearest McDonalds: McJack Nearest Prostitute: Ho'Jack Strap one on me?: No-Jack

While it is interesting and somewhat entertaining to read about how the 'corporate demons' are out to steal all your personal information and use it for some evil, malign, take-over-the-world purpose, it gets quite old after awhile. The fact is, you aren't important enough to bother with. Nobody has the time to pore over your information and isolate you from the crowd, just for the sheer fun of doing it. As others have said, you are just an anonymous blip on a computer screen, or one ant in a colony of billions. And, if you are important enough to be 'tracked,' or have your information stolen so that these mysterious evildoers can ruin your life (lol), you would likely be aware of how and where information pertaining to you is disseminated. Chances are you wouldn't even be using networks like this. The bottom line is, technology like this can be very beneficial to everyone in the market, and its going to happen whether people like it or not. Resistance is to be expected, as there has been with every single advance humankind has ever made (I bet there were critics of the wheel). While there might be a few casualties along the way, the end result will be well worth whatever trials and tribulations it took to get there.

How quickly we forget!! All we have to do is look at China to see how willing Google is honor the requests of governments. They censor Google's output because it is the law in China. Why do they comply with China? Simple, for the money. What else are they willing to do for the money? Probably anthing they can get away with. Is there a conspircy, Yes, to make money. That will motivate them to do just about anthing they want with the information.

Did you know that if you put a frog in boiling water in will jump out? but if you put it in warm water and turn up the heat bit by bit you can roast it alive? Did you know that if you take away someone's privacey all at the same time they will object? but if you do it slowly...

I'm not worried about Amazon.com knowing where I am; I *AM* worried about anyone having a record of where I have been. If my wife suddenly files for divorce and subpoenas Google/Earthlink for my whereabouts on dates she suspects I have been unfaithful, G/E is obliged to give it up. No conspiracy about it! The only information that is safe is the information that doesn't exist. The only way G/E can track locations without subjecting individuals to legal "discovery" after the fact, is if the records were never kept in the first place. Lance ==)---------------

Google have figured out how to make money from something that is almost infinitesmally small - the advertising associated with search results and web pages. In this experiment they are exploring the concept of making the advertising more relevant to you physical location. Kind of like a "Barker" at the fairground. Time will tell if it works or not. Also note: it may not work in some societies - ones in which people prefer to talk with people for information than deal with computers. That will be interesting to see about SF versus Mountain View, where we have more people with elctronic tethers walking around.

What about Google's recent decision to not give up its users searches to the DoJ? This certainly doesn't seem to bode well for your theory on Google being a pawn of governments. And also, if you don't want your movements tracked, simply do not attach yourself to this network. In no way are they forcing every citizen and visitor of San Francisco to use their technology, it's simply a convenience that is available.

Free has curb appeal, but having "corporate America's big brother" know where I am is a turn off for (an i am guesstimating) 95% of people. If I want people, any people to know where I am, I answer my cell phone. Thank you very much. Our American privacy is not a luxury, it was purchased in the spilled blood of tens of thousands of Americans in battles so we could have our freedom. Freedom to not have our privacy invaded, or motions and buying prectices scrudinized by a faceless group that answers to no one. There are Laws that protect our freedom to privacy. If I want to see what your company has to say, I'll call from your comercial ad, bilboard sign, news ad, or look you up online. Other than that I don't want to see your crap in my face every time I turn my head. Noone needs free comunication this bad, its just not worth it. As for virtual lock and key, yea.. right.. If theres a key, some hacker will make a duplicate key that fits. Or some moron Judge-a-the-Corp-pocket gets the call to force information disclosure for some assonine made-up National Security or Wachguard Defense front-reason. No whos got the data?

Dear John Q, they can track you if your cell phone is ON... we know where you are, we are watching you now.

I dont know what others are complaining about. As a consumer I love the feature and knowing something that I want to know about - especially when I Google! As a business I sure love to lure the clientele into my place when they are so close by yet they maynot even know that our place exists. How many times you as a consumer ended up choosing the "what ever" since you dont know what else exists nearby? I had few occassions and am sure can use this service from Google.

i live in big sandy, tennessee 38221...... give me free wifi here and i'll let you locate me all you want.... mikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ps; we don't even have cell coverage yet......

OK. If you just read the article and you're up in arms over your lack of privacy... First of all, don't use the service. It's FREE! Go get your own service somewhere else. Nobody is MAKING you do this. Second, the ads you see are based off of your location. Some idiot said a mob based hit team could open a business, or you could stalk someone. THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS IS. The businesses don't have any idea at all who you are or where you are. They just pay for advertising. This is not some service that someone can use to locate a specific individual. The businesses will probably get a bill each month saying x amount of users saw your add based on their location, so you owe us x amount of dollars. Again, what it comes down to is that if you're mad because you think it invades your privacy, then you obviously don't know what you're talking about and aren't going to bother finding out. Just don't use it. If you want free wifi internet, which quite a few people do (I wish they had it nationwide), then ads have to make up the operating costs, and this is a good way for them to get ad income from businesses who normally wouldn't be interested in that.

The fact is that this proposed service is voluntary. Everyone in San Fransisco will decide either that free Wi-Fi is better than privacy, or that privacy is better than free Internet. No one can accidentally use the service. No, scratch that, a Computer can not accidentally use the service. An ignorant person could easily use the service without realizing it. Google's ads are usually quite subtle. That is all that frightens me. Ignorant people. When people don't know what they are doing, and then blame others when they do. All Google really needs is an automatic "runonce" start-page carefully explaining that the user's location is (or is about to be) tracked. This would save Google from the Lawsuits, and the Ignorants from themselves.

I am fine with G/E knowing my position, as others already pointed out, it is a free service. What bothers me that there are others who offer paid services and don't even mention the fact that they are (well, at least may be) logging data about my position when using their services (cell phones can be used for tracking too right?). So what we need is maybe some regulations that will better ensure our privacy considering what modern technology is capable of.

...all the article is saying is that there will be a whole lot of annonymous little dots and when you open your web browser you'll see an ad from a local establishment. Isn't that what they said about cell phone usage? That you'd just be a communication stream, that no one would be able to triangulate your position, that no one could use that to track you? And yet, in a very famous case (OJ Simpson), the police used his cell phone signal to triangulate his position, and to give chase (the white Bronco low-speed chase). What's worrying about this WiFi idea is that Google already has a huge database of your surfing habits, as do several other large online businesses... when those databases come together to form a profile of YOU that those businesses can then disseminate, that is YOUR information they are putting out there, to God only knows who... whether that information is obtained by the government by legal maneuvering, whether that information is sold by a rogue employee, whether that information is stolen by hackers... doesn't matter. And what happens if you receive an ad on your laptop (which Google knows is yours because of all the personal data they've compiled on you), and those advertisers then begin giving feedback to Google/Earthlink about what you purchased? "Joe K. Street (name derived from GMail registration), using a laptop Google has dubbed #398457123 (said laptop regularly used to access aforementioned GMail account), was served an ad for magazines from Books4U on Geary Street, which he was passing by at 10:07am on 23April2006. He purchased three pornographic magazines from said advertiser: Jugs, Hustler, and Barely Legal." Not the kind of information you'd like released, eh? Once your personal information is out there, it can be used in any number of ways... to either make your life easier, or to make your life a living hell. And as they say, "You can't unring a bell."... you can't recall that information once it's released. Now, what happens when that information is used by a subsidiary of a legitimate co-marketer of Google/Earthlink to, say, deny you health insurance coverage because you indulge in the unhealthy habit of passing Dunkin' Donuts every day at 5:50pm, and buy 12 donuts each time? And ask anyone who's gone through identity theft if they'd allow the release of their personal identifying information again, if they had the chance to do it all over again. And yet, this 'virtual lock and key' system they propose will be tested continually by the hackers who are out to steal your indentifying information. Speaking out of personal experience, I can say that identity theft is no fun... it takes a lot of effort and time to recover from, and tends to really mess up your life in the meantime. So, the best defense (against not only the aggregation of your personal data by Google / Earthlink, but against all such efforts) is to install the necessary programs to anonymize your computer while using this service... ranging from a time skew 'warbler' (that changes your computer's clock skew from time to time so that device fingerprinting cannot succeed), to using anonymous proxies such as TOR (so your data is intermingled with others' data), to ensuring that the laptop you're using to connect to Google/EarthLink is stripped of identifying information, to using a pseudo-identity when using the laptop.

If you don't want google to have your information, DON'T USE THEIR SERVICES! Wow, earthshattering, huh? The tradeoff for 30 years has been Convenience vs. Privacy. If you were worried about companies/whomever knowing about your whereabouts, you certainly would be careful about where you used your credit card, wouldn't you? Why would this service be any different? And those of you who are against companies keeping information about you....where were you thirty years ago when all this began?

And those of you who are against companies keeping information about you....where were you thirty years ago when all this began? Perhaps not even born yet? And to those who say, "Just don't use the service, if you don't want to be tracked."... well, most laptops are set up to automatically associate with any available, unencrypted WiFi connection available, connecting preferentially to the strongest signal... and since the Google/Earthlink WiFi signal will most probably be stronger than any others nearby (it IS designed to blanket the city, after all), your laptop will most likely preferentially associate with that WiFi connection. So, merely by leaving your laptop on while you drive or walk about, you could be tracked... whether you use their service (i.e.: actively surf) or not.

OK, first I don't like anyone knowing my business, but that's just me. What I really don't understand is how this is really going to be wonderfully beneficial and a major leap forward for small business advertising. So I'm supposed to be some dork wandering around a street looking at my wifi pda and up pops some text ads for some businesses that I'm am passing by. Hmmmmm, isn't that what signs are for. OK, so I'm some dufus tourist who can't read maybe it will help me spot that elusive sale on tourist tee shirts that I have been looking for. When I go shop, I go with a purpose, I know what I am looking for, I go get it and then I'm gone. I don't wander around looking for things to do or see. Sometimes it seems that if we just use the word technology and some acroymns then we can take really mediocre ideas and make them sound so thrilling. Sorry I'm not thrilled about this. And neither will the majority of people who don't live in big cities. And believe it or not, there are a lot of people who live in small cities who know where every shop and diner is located. From a marketing standpoint I think that it is a tech overkill idea that ends up helping Google but not small businesses. Sorry, it's stupid.

The technology exists to track us all by our cell phones. Every time you place a call, or even turn it on, you’re telling your cell phone carrier where you are in the world, and in many cases down to tens or hundreds of feet. How do we know this information isn’t being abused?

Has anyone considered that the internet traffic data Google will be collecting would be far more valuable than tracking physical location? I'm sure Google knows what a packet sniffer is, and if they're the ISP, they could see a lot of packets.

The writer may or may not have even have intended the sly editorial comment expressed by his choice of words, but ". . . someone THAT'S logged on . . . " is how you would speak of an animal or an object. Were he speaking about humans he would have said, " . . . someone WHO's logged on . . ." The final, logical step to this proposal is one that the crazy lady in my apartment building used to rant about 15 years ago. She even spent part of her Social Security check to distribute flyers saying that her Bible told her Big Brother was intending to install a tracking chip in each of us. Maybe she wasn't so crazy, after all.

I think some are being paranoid. google fought hard to protect peoples privacy against the DOJ, more so than Yahoo or others. Further more, this is a free service your not obliged to use it. However, if you do, don't expect this to be free. G/E need to be compensated and it is by ads. Just how much info do you really think they can obtain from you anyways? I'd say they know less about you than cell phone carriers or retail stores who can log a database of your purchase patterns. Welcome to the internet age. I can already see what a great feature this can be. For example, if I was a tourist in a city with this feature, I can logon to the free wifi, query for Italian restuaruants and in a few seconds, I've got a list of the closest restuaruants. If I don't know how to get there, then I'll link to google maps, and voila, I get approximate directions to the restuarant.

JustJoe, it is entirely acceptable to write either "someone that's logged on" or "someone who's logged on." See usage note at who.

Hey ChoBil, you can do that now with google local, or MSN local. This is GeoTracking that will pull up all the businesses within a certain radius of where you are standing at any given time. Which means that stores will no longer need signs outside, you can just keep your eyes on the pda and follow it to the restaurant if there is one close by. Of course I'm sure that you will be able to spread out the search radius to find what you are looking for, but do we really need this? My point is that while large businesses and chain restaurants will pony up the cash to pay for the advertising probably PPC or some variation, most small businesses can't. In my town of 120,000 people there are 7000 businesses of which less than 3% have websites. The rest don't have a web presence and either don't want one or can't afford one. The money that they can afford to spend on advertising is going to the traditional means of newspaper or radio and some cable TV. Even though net advertising is cheaper it's not proven yet to really bring business into the door of Joe's Little Italy All-U-Can Eat Diner. At least not to Joe's satisfaction. Now if Google wants to provide the advertising for free to Joe then that's fine. But right now he ain't gonna pay for it. People need to step away from the techno light for a little while and come back to the reality of small business needs every once in a while. Not everyone has a wifi pda or sits at B&N sipping a latte while looking for deals on their device. Not every car or truck has a navigation device. And right now, regardless of what you read on the web, it's tough times for small businesses. So with this technology that Google is introducing the larger businesses will advertise but the smaller ones might not be able to afford it and that puts them at a further disadvantage against the walmarts and home depots of the world. I know of a better way to do this that would be cost effective for every size of business and is better than Google's model.

Ok..so who will be required to access this wireless network? If you don't want to be tracked.. don't connect to it. Are you guys really this stupid?

RFID is the sign of the times, Google wants to track you so the Antichrist knows which side you are on, and most importantly, the Sky Is Falling! If this freaks you out, start reading license agreements. Look at your "rights" to view DVDs that you purchase (especially on operating systems such as linux). Compare fair use-rights with what the RIAA is trying to do to copyright law. And most of all check out what you agreed to when you installed your Microsoft products, the yahoo widget engine, and just about any online service. This doesn't sound like anything to worry about, in fact, they probably don't target specific computers, they probably just target their wireless repeaters, and send targed ads to the various repeaters. And, as many have said, you can always decide not to use it. It is your choice. At least they aren't making that choice for you. (for a contrast, read up on trusted computing) (And yes, I use the Yahoo! Widget Engine, and on a few PCs have Windows XP pro, and subscribe to various online services. I pick my battles and don't cry over every little "we keep records of who uses our service" agreements.) And, to clear up one last point: If you put a frog in boiling water, he will jump out. If you put him in room temperature water, and slowly turn up the heat, he won't notice UNTIL it reaches the frog's thermal threshold, at which point he jumps out. The commonly quoted illustration where he gets boiled sounds good, but is scientifically inaccurate, and the correct illustration shows how we can behave. (Of course, most people still buy CSS Encrypted DVDs accepting the fact that they can never legally copy it to a digital device for viewing later or for backup, which has lead to the reccomendation that it be illegal to make copies of audio CDs to MP3 players and things like that, so maybe some people ignore their threshold...)

Apparently, laptop thefts (especially, violent ones) are WAY UP in San Francisco this year. Maybe, this can help track down some of the stolen and then resold laptops...

I'd like to see one case where something really bad happened to a person after all this 'internet habit' compilation was used against them. Furthermore, nobody has every submitted any proof that these corporations keep dossiers on every individual that uses their services. This service is more impersonal than that - it doesn't identify you by your name or who you are for that matter, just where you are and what businesses you are close to.

Tracking the whereabouts of its Wi-Fi network users in San Francisco still raising privacy concerns.

Tracking the whereabouts of its Wi-Fi network users in San Francisco still raising privacy concerns.

Tracking the whereabouts of its Wi-Fi network users in San Francisco still raising privacy concerns.

Tracking the whereabouts of its Wi-Fi network users in San Francisco still raising privacy concerns.

Tracking the whereabouts of its Wi-Fi network users in San Francisco still raising privacy concerns.

Google is the Antichrist