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WHMCS "Client Base" map graphic = privacy violation?
I was taking a look at http://wickeddevelopers.com/wiki/projects/whmcs/clientmaps , which: "ClientMaps Pro is an integration between your WHMCS installation and Google Maps service. It allows you to display the location (cities) of your clients on a nicely formatted Google Map, in order to boost sales, or show business dominance over a geographical area."
And makes maps like this:
I'd prefer not to alienate customers. Anyone feel that something like this is a privacy violation?
Comments
Not a privacy violation, as it is not being shared to / or stored, by any third parties.
apart from the module searching, and locating it all on a map. But it's google..
Any personal information beyond location?
Aren't you already using google analytic and Geo IP to track your visitors?
City is as granular as it gets. There's a demo here: http://wickeddevelopers.com/demos/clientmaps.php
Indeed we are, but I can't use that data for a cutesy map to put on our website.
If it's done country/state level, I'd see no problem with it. Just don't pinpoint exact addresses not sure about city/region level though.
If it's country - not really a privacy violation. Cool find @Damian
Yeah, that's what i'm wondering about specifically. Obviously, country is pretty harmless, but when it starts getting down to city level, I'm not so sure. So I ask the masses
As far as I know, Privacy Policies generally apply to personally identifiable information. Since you can't usually identify a person from city (until it's some stupid little town in the neck of the woods, and even then it's probably not accurate), I would say that technically speaking this is not a privacy violation.
As for the moral aspect, I'm on the fence about this one.
This would not bother me at all, go for it.
While going in to details like cities could be revealing more information than necessary in some situations (i.e. very small towns) i don't think it's such a big problem. Yet you could consider to aggregate/round the data to a country/state or equivalent if there is such an option.
For me I'm fine with it, but @rds100 did bring up a valid point about very small towns etc.
And more importantly I'm the only person that's registered client of theirs around the London area..
Lucky my Geolocation is a little off. I wouldn't like being pin-pointed to a small town or small area.
Not a privacy violation at all..
Well, I ended up installing it, and....
...it looks like i'm going to end up coding my own based on country.
Ok, now we know that @emilv is your customer ;-)
Privacy is often compromised when multiple sources are combined. E.g, individual in remote town/city identified through this, combined with google street view... In this instance the provider has unwittingly disclosed the address of a customer. Sure, it impacts a small number of peeps but they didn't consent...
Yes, this is a privacy violation because of you are sharing your customer location in public without their permission.
@Damian
I would recommended you to show a option in their client area or send a email and don't show their location until they permit you.
Would it be possible to add random up to +/- 200km to the geographical location of each user?
w00t! You've got a customer from a small village I grew up
Personally I dont see this as a privacy problem, as long as the application is not pointing to their immediate address. Internally we have a similar application that only uses the customers zip/postal code. This gives a +/- 3 mile buffer.
That's a good point.
I'm unable to identify anyone.
That's a good idea. If we decide to go live with this, we'll be sure to email existing clients and ask them if they'd like to opt-out, and we'll put a bit of text in the AUP/TOS that new customers would be part of the map.
It's not extremely precise as it is, as it only operates on the city name, so you get the geographical center of the town's name. Here's me, for example:
which is off by about 9 blocks horizontally and 3 blocks vertically.
@Damian That looks like a mess, try it with country level markers. May make it look nicer, and there'd be less privacy concerns (morally or legally, w/e).
Same here, country level will be better. Perhaps state level on very big countries with lots of customers.
M
That's waaaay more accurate than I'm comfortable with. The city field could easily allow someone who knows somebody's location to confirm whether or not they were a customer of yours.
Country or state/region markers I'd have no problem with personally.
Am I totally missing the download location?
It took me awhile to find it too: http://wickeddevelopers.com/clients/cart.php?carttpl=comparison
Why not just use the one built into WHMCS?
I'm 'tarded, where is it?
It's in the "reports" section.
I am so very ANTI these sorts of e-penis apps / plugins.
It's just e-penis plus map abuse. Any excuse these days to load up a map seems to be a good one. Never mind that the average person is totally geographically challenged and can't use a map or common directions if their life depended upon it.
Privacy issue? Somewhat, depending on what exactly is being fed to the third party borg control (i.e. Google in this case). If you are just showing dots on countries then fine. If it touches town names, states or any other granular info then no go. Nothing should be passed to Godgle beyond telling them to display a map and put pins in these countries. Do more than that then it crosses the sane line.
There, fixed.
M