Brightkite is a new social networking location based community.  We know that marketers will love this technology.  We also know that in the wrong hands it can be like a stolen identity, however worse because the person(s) know your exact moves.  This is akin to the Coast Guard tracking a vessel on the open seas by the signal sent from the vessel’s Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon also known as an EPIRB.

So the question becomes what are the intended consequences?  According to Brightkite you can track friends in real time and meet people.  Cool.  So this begs the question what are the unintended consequences being able to know where your friends or spouse is?  I can see this being useful to track your dog if you could mount a cell phone type of device on their collar.  A year from now there will be a lot of talk about this type of service.  Maybe just maybe it is pushing the privacy issue too far.  Why?  Because there could be way to many surprises for the users…..but maybe not.  We really don’t know yet how creative people will be with this technology.

Imagine putting an EPIRB on your friend.  How useful could that be for you?