For most of my friends who are selectively active on social media, rogue photo tagging (old school photos mainly, probably some other unflattering ones as well) on Facebook was a big enough deal that they use the service, but do so without their real last names – or real names at all. Foursquare, Gowalla and the rest would be almost negligent if they ignore the role that those type of things played in Facebook’s growth. I think we’re only a few development cycles away from seeing background updates, tagging of “friends” and all sorts of oversharing that may be good for markets, but may present real risks to the people using them.

My only concern is about how these applications will handle background updates – that’s a direction most of the networks/applications are heading in. If it’s not dead simple to turn off, there are a lot of people who could be broadcasting their location without knowing it. For people in a situation similar to the protesting Iranians, that can be a big deal.