Facebook’s latest approved patent may allow the social networking site to offer friend suggestions to strangers based on whether you happened to be standing (or sitting) next to them.
How would you like the weird guy who sits opposite you on the subway each morning to have your name? The weird guy who always seems to be sniffing his fingers and you’re not entirely sure why. Yes, that guy.
Facebook has been offering “friend suggestions” to their users for some time now. These are based on many factors, including your mutual friends, workplace information, where you live, what school you went to, what contacts you have in your phone and many other unidentified (and as such, probably invasive) factors.
Facebook’s now approved patent would allow the social networking website to expand that feature to also suggest people who you come into close proximity with. Incidentally, that’s something the social networking site has already been accused of doing.
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The potential feature could allow Facebook to record how often you come into proximity with other users, at what time in the day, what you were doing (i.e. sitting, running, getting the train etc.) and for how long. It can do this by using wireless signals given off by devices with the Facebook app installed, such as Bluetooth or Z-Wave communications. Based on that information, Facebook could then offer up friend suggestions.
So weird finger sniffing guy on the train may check his smartphone to see your face and your name staring back at him as his friend suggestion. And vice versa.
Creepy? We agree.
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Of course Facebook argue that it could be useful, you know, for those “all-too-common occasions” where you completely forget to exchange contact details with someone you meet at a party or some other gathering and have absolutely no way of digging up their details outside of Facebook…
If, for example, the first user meets the second user but forgets to obtain the second user’s contact information and does not apparently share any mutual connections with the second user, it can be challenging or inefficient for the first user to search for and find the second user within the social networking service. These and other similar concerns can reduce the overall user experience associated with using social networking services.
For now, it’s just an approved patent, nothing more. And it’s not clear whether users could opt out of the feature if Facebook do implement it, or whether it would work if you have denied the Facebook app your location data.
But it’s certainly a worrying feature to watch out for in the future.
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