ABSTRACT
A person’s location is, by its very nature, ephemeral, continually changing and shifting. Locative media, by contrast, entails processes in which a user’s geographic location is encoded, usually along with an exact time stamp, translating this data into information that not only persists but can be aggregated, searched, indexed, mapped, analyzed, and recalled in a variety of ways for a range of purposes. 1 However, even though the utility of locative media for the purposes of tracking, advertising, and profiling is obvious to many large corporations, these uses are often far from clear for many users of mobile media devices such as smartphones, tablets, and satellite navigation tools. Moreover, when a new mobile media device is purchased, users are often overwhelmed with the sheer number of options, tools, and apps at their disposal. Exploring the settings or privacy preferences of a new device in a sufficiently granular manner to even notice the various location-related options can understandably escape many users.
