What can you do when Pokemon Go decides your house is a gym?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/12/12159422/pokemon-go-turned-house-into-gym-augmented-reality-privacy
Usually, a digital platform isn't responsible for what its
users do -- whether it's something as mild as posting
inflammatory comments on a message board or as extreme as
following an explosives recipe on a website. Neither is a
game. But Pokmon Go isn't just offering information, it's
actively creating a system that encourages people to visit
certain locations to participate. "This is a situation where
in order to play the game, individuals have to physically
travel," says Calo. And if large numbers of them end up on
private property, someone could allege that Niantic showed
negligence in setting up the game's locations ... "When you
put a Pokmon gym in someone's home, you have to know that that
person's going to be bothered, harassed," says Calo. "It's
readily foreseeable that people would get hurt; it's readily
foreseeable that people would be a nuisance." Similarly,
Stanford Center for Internet and Society affiliate scholar
Bryant Walker Smith suggests that an attorney could argue
Niantic was encouraging players to trespass -- which could
leave the company open for liability even if it's not engaging
in outright criminal behavior.
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
_______________________________________________
pfir mailing list
http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
