Google has recently added a new cool feature to its Mobile Map application: Latitude.

Available in version 3.01 of Mobile Map this enhancement lets you share your location and track the one of your friends.

Once installed on your smart phone (Latitude is available for most platform), you enter your Google account information and start inviting friends to track you and be tracked. A Igoogle widget lets you monitor your friends whereabouts and up-date your status and location directly from your PC.

Various level of privacy can be set for each friend. You can decide to share exact street level location, just the city name or no information at all.

I can see how some parents may be delighted to enable this new free Google service on their kid’s phone. I can also imagine some very interesting professional usages. One has, however, to pause for a second and wonder of the implication of being constantly tracked. Google wants to be reassuring. User control everything that goes out… They say. Right, but let me believe however that nothing is for free. When will we start getting advertisement in the form of text message when passing in front of a store?
Once again I admire google for this new successful bit of software that we are freely letting peek a bit more closely into our daily life.

That said, yes I too have installed it on my Blackberry. And I love it.