AOL's "Location" Software Raises Concerns Over Kids' Safety

By Grayson Kamm First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL ? An optional new add-on to AOL's popular Instant Messenger software allows some Internet users to pinpoint your child's exact location. Think of it as sort of ?Instant Messenger meets MapQuest ".

Millions of people -- a lot of them teenagers -- use AOL's Instant Messenger service to chat with buddies online. Now, a new add-on feature takes a typed conversation with a friend and moves it into the real world.

The new program "AIM Location" is optional, but if your kid installs it, anyone on their Instant Messenger Buddy List who has the program can see right where they are right at that moment.

For now, the software works on computers, but not on cell phones. It uses Wi-Fi hotspots -- Internet connections you find at your coffee shop or library -- to pinpoint the computer's exact location on a map.

"Why can't they just ask me? If I want the person to know where I am, they can ask me. If I don't want to tell them, I can tell them 'no,'" asked Rohit Millstein, a regular at a computer-friendly coffee shop on the Southside. Folks like Millstein worry about how an adult who pretends to be a kid's friend could take advantage of the software.

"Somebody could find out where their kid is. The kid could be home and safe. That kid could be in a coffee shop and not so safe," Millstein said.

AOL points out that the location feature isn't automatic -- you do need to "opt-in" to get it. And if your kids' screen names are connected to a parent's account, mom or dad can use parental controls to shut it off.

AOL says this software calls for the same thing most new technology needs -- careful supervision from a parent.

How does the software know where a user is? A company called Skyhook Wireless put together the mapping software. The maps weren't assembled using only Global Positioning System satellites, but rather through a comparatively gritty and dirty undertaking that's outlined in this explanation from the Associated Press:

[Skyhook] has spent the past few years driving a fleet of 200 trucks up and down the streets of 2,500 cities and towns across the United States and Canada. These trucks scan for the pulse given off at least once a second by every home wireless router or commercial hotspot, recording the unique identifying code for that piece of Wi-Fi equipment. That code is correlated with the exact physical location where it was captured using GPS in the trucks, which cruise the streets at 15 to 50 miles per hour as they collect this information.

The resulting database consists of 16 million Wi-Fi access points covering an area where Skyhook says 70 percent of the U.S. population lives and six Canadian markets where the majority of that nation's people live.

When an AIM user installs Skyhook, the application gathers the identifying codes for all access points that are detected by the Wi-Fi card in the computer, then compares those with the database to identify the person's location. When connected via a non-Wi-Fi computer, a user can manually input a location.

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