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Discussion on: A Way iBeacons Might Actually Work

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Peter Kim Frank

Of course, location tracking always raises some good conversations around privacy, creepiness and advertising.

I think this is the crux of the issue. Even if it was purely opt-in, I think there would be a creepiness factor that Facebook is loath to draw more attention to.

Speaking as a consumer, I prefer to "pull" in location-specific deals; I don't want those "pushed" to me (because that would mean I'm always explicitly being tracked). I recently opened up an app called Hotel Tonight and got a special deal because I was within a geo-specified range for a participating hotel. I "pulled" the deal and it was relevant and timely and awesome.

But if I were "pushed" that same deal I would feel totally spied on and annoyed. After all, this was the only time I needed a hotel room in that area.

I would imagine that same conflict would prevent a lot of folks from opting in.

Definitely an interesting idea, and I think that Facebook would be the only one who could really pull this off at any level of scale or adoption.