Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - Cont.

[Update: Caveat emptor, lawsuits already started on Pokémon Go trespassing - BBC
Update 2: follow-on posts here & here on geo-ramifications to virtual reality mapping]

I posted last week re: spatial ownership issues Pokémon Go raised, from the personal (visiting family the weekend it was released in France)

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thru Esri's Geonet where its spatial potential was discussed

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to Linkedin on social issues, which this is a follow-up to

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Geonet in fact alerted us to the PokéVision app to track the prize areas, then tools on Github with a caveat that proved prophetic, and its (and others') eventual demise, all links here.

When I mused that Pokémon Go was not open, I had no inside knowledge, just a sense that gaming is very focused and not necessarily concerned with spatial (or ethical) issues it raises - BBC Click is an excellent ongoing source for this industry I'm no expert in.

While Github is an excellent resource - I recently used it to help maintain map data on dataportals.org - it is no guarantee of openness or legality, the warning from one app is telling

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What I'm getting at is very simple: the upside of the internet is that it opens all sorts of opportunities and innovation - I can hardly add to the literature on that - but the downside is twofold:

• online authors can do what they want when they want, which is good for both providers and consumers in reducing maintenance cycles, but puts the onus of communication on authors
• online consumers need to and must be ever vigilant of the T&C's of online apps, maintain their public profiles and ensuring that what they post at all times is OK to go public

What does this have to do with spatial, you might ask? Spatial adds a dimension to social & legal issues we're just starting to grasp, and it behooves us in the geospatial industry to inform everyone of it.

Privacy concerns are nothing new and I can add little here, but the adventures of Pokémon Go, Pokévision and Poké Radar clearly suggest how fluid that field still is. Help is however at hand, as mentioned on LinkedIn, and let me reiterate the messages to check out spatial law sites like that mentioned one the second-last pictures above. I covered this topic on Pulse from my profession's view (petroleum geospatial) from which is another picture on a lighter note:

click to enlarge, here for original

In closing let me borrow words from a LinkedIn posting comment on this topic:

[...] 'legal' and 'social' ramifications [...]  should reinforce the value of the knowledge and expertise of the GIS / geospatial expert when it comes to the capture, visualisation, analysis and interpretation location based data