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If you have been reading all the technology predictions for 2010, you may have noticed that location based services feature predominately. Online websites such as
Foursquare,
Gowalla and
Twitter all have the ability to publically share and promote your current location.
Geolocation is the practice of determining the physical, real world location of a person, device, and address using digital information processed through the internet or other electronic means of communication.
Foursquare is like Twitter, but for locations. It is more of a game, and some people use it to obtain a high score and get badges (for checking in certain places). Just like every other social network, you build a friends list and when you decide to check-in (or publicly announce your location), it uses your phone's GPS to get your coordinates.
New mashup websites like
Demand Spot plot geotagged tweets using the Google Maps API.
Geotagging will open up a plethora of
privacy and security implications for the recruitment industry. We can now easily find, follow, track or stalk with the click of a button.
Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/geolocation-based-sourcing-or-stalking-a319.htmlTags: twitter gowalla.com gowalla privacy issues data manipulation google maps api stalking ip address mobile recruitment demandspot.com using foursquare for recruitment demand spot foursquare.com foursquare online recruitment proximity job search location based sourcing location based recruitment geotagging geolocation geocodes 
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I think you're spot-on. Location sharing technologies create a new reality that recruiters, as well as marketers of all kinds, will learn to use to reach out to their prospects. That raises all kinds of questions regarding privacy, like where exactly lies the boundary between following and stalking, marketing and spamming. The questions aren't new though - they exist in some form in almost any online-marketing technology (like email marketing vs spam) - and with time the boundaries between use and abuse become pretty clear.
I believe that the responsibility to take advantage of the new opportunities that geolocation offers without abusing them lies with all players in the game: services that publish people's geolocation must make that fact and its implications perfectly clear, consumers need to be aware of that publicity and how it may be used by third parties, and businesses must learn quickly which behaviors are appreciated by their prospective customers and which are considered invasion of privacy or spamming.
The big problem is figuring out where the line should be drawn - if a recruiter sends unsolicited but well targeted messages to job seekers, many will be thankful for the offer of help in their time of need, some will simply ignore the message and an unavoidable minority will not appreciate it.
Our experience in DemandSpot so far was very positive. Out of many thousands of messages sent by our customers to prospects over 30% resulted in a positive response while less than 1% led to a negative one. Moreover, all those negative responses can be traced to a few specific users of our system who apparently aren't good communicators (easily solved with a little education on online etiquette...)
It appears that the secret to successful marketing in this new environment, as opposed to stalking or spamming, is in offering a great service to people who really need it while avoiding too "pushy" behavior (if someone ignores your message leave them alone). This leads to an overwhelmingly positive response and most important - new business.
Elad Kehat
DemandSpot founder
If a person chooses to share where they are having lunch, it shouldn't have an impact on whether of not they get the job.
In general, yes, geotagging has a strong potential for becoming a privacy issue, not only to recruiters, but to the whole world.
That being said, if someone wants privacy, then don't share it on the internet.