Google ditches latitude location alerts

Folks who tried Google Latitude a while back might have noticed that there was a rather disturbing feature that would notify you of friends who were nearby – Location Alerts. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if you were shown on a map like Foursquare or something, but folks started to receive emails notifying them that their friends were in the vicinity, without requesting such information. Of course, if you’re a person who is fussy about privacy, the good news is that Google has quietly killed the feature. While most folks out there generally like to have more features in services, this is probably one controversial feature that is best removed. The update from Google reads:

“The experimental Location Alerts (beta) app was retired in December, 2010. Retiring features is always a tough decision, but part of building experimental features is picking the best ones on which to focus. Rest assured, we’re continuing to develop apps such as Location History as well as the Latitude API to enable the developer community to create even more ways for you to use Latitude.”

Matthew Chung
Categories: General
Tags: Google, latitude