> This is a salient point. Richard's example only casts doubt on what user expectations actually are. I don't have a research budget that could be used on a survey or study to determine what users might think when presented with such a URI.
>
> If it were simply a matter of managing expectations, it might be as simple as re-branding the identifier: rather than "location URI" we could label it the "where I am right now URI". Or, we could rely on good UI to make the consequences clear.
Except that the UI really can't do this, easily (except in cases where the users hands these out manually). This gets particularly confusing if you have multiple versions of similar-looking URLs with very different access properties:
http://lis.com/alice/293590D256FBEE1F75E816
hands out the current location (one location);
http://lis.com/alice/293590D256FBEE1F75E817
hands out locations from now to eternity.
Somebody is likely to get bitten by this, badly...
>
> In all cases, I'd like to temper this with the observation that this particular mode - that of location recipients coming directly to a LIS for their location information - is not necessarily the best option. In my view, a presence service - with a stable identifier for the Target - is a more usable option.
Agreed. While there is no difference in theory, in practice, the plain possession URL is more prone to inadvertent or malicious forwarding to others (or posting on a blog or web site). This is a limited problem when this is a location snapshot, particularly if there's no timing information included. ("Alice was at the Empire State Building at some point in time" isn't much of a secret; naturally, "Alice was at an abortion clinic" more so.) It's a big problem if that URL provides on-going tracking access; the target may not even realize that their information has been compromised since they won't see the location accesses.
People are much more reluctant and unlikely to give all their friends their SIP or XMPP credentials, so the presence mode does seem safer. (Naturally, anybody can build a proxy that makes some of their information available to the world at large, but that requires actual malice and non-trivial technical skills.)
>
> --Martin
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