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back to article New Facebook phone app allows you to stalk your mates

Facebook is adding a new application that alerts smartphone users when their chums are nearby, but thankfully the feature is optional. Nearby friends Want to get closer to your friends? "If you turn on Nearby Friends, you'll occasionally be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up," …

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  1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Cool, but...

    Until Facebook has outside security reviews, there's no way their complicated and highly connected app is going on my phone with permission to do anything it (or a hacker) wants.

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    1. Mike Flugennock
      Reply Icon
      Devil

      Re: Cool, but...

      Hell, when I first got my smartphone, I decided I wasn't going to let Facebook anywhere near it, no matter what.

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  2. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Stalking friends?

    That would be EX friends then

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Opt-out

    I assume, this being Facebook, that is it an opt-out feature buried under stacks of menus

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    1. A Long Fellow
      Reply Icon

      Re: Opt-out

      Stacks of menus? Good heavens, no. You'll have to go your local planning office, where you'll find the form in a dark cellar with no stairs, in the bottom of locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'

      I like the idea of Facebook becoming the marketing department of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, if only for the comfort of knowing what fate awaits them.

      10 0
      1. davidp231
        Reply Icon

        Re: Opt-out

        And you need to be lucky with the Infinite Improbability Drive in order to reach the right menu option.

        2 1
      2. Martin-73 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Opt-out

        Well the description fits, they certainly are a bunch of mindless jerks

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  4. Frank N. Stein

    Stalkers and other types of deviant criminals will love this app. It will help them locate potential victims more easily. Of course, the Facebook propeller heads didn't think of that.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bah, forget stalking. Consider the usability angle.

    What's going to happen is that you're in the pub and the thing will pop up "Bob and 3 of your mates are nearby".

    I KNOW. WE'RE ALL ON THE SAME FUCKING TABLE!!!!

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    1. auburnman
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re: Bah, forget stalking. Consider the usability angle.

      Get off the table and sit round it. This is a respectable establishment!

      0 0
  6. Steven Raith

    I use Facebook...

    To communicate in a second-degree manner with people I don't want to see, for the most part.

    I think I might be Doing It Wrong (Again).

    Steven R

    PS: I also use it as an extension of my ability to annoy people, which is sort of mixed in with the first part.

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  7. EddieD

    "If you're using Windows Phone, you're out of luck."

    In this case I think that out of maybe an in

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