Virtual Earth becomes Windows Live Local

MSN Virtual Earth (discussed here earlier) has been upgraded and rebranded as Windows Live Local. It has several nice user interface improvements (such as pushpins for arbitrary annotations, and driving directions by clicking rather than having to know the address of where you're going--it happens), and some sweet detailed aerial photography that (as Marc Hedlund said) makes cities look like The Sims, but the rebranding is the big news.

"Windows Live" is the new vision for MSN--a portal with three apparent pillars: (1) Keeping up with the tech Joneses (Ajax, RSS, networked bookmarks, etc.); (2) Making money (classifieds, local search, and their advertising network); (3) integration of the online app world with Windows (some have described it as "Active Desktop 2.0"). Local's maps cut into all three parts: the rich online experience (though it's not so rich if you're using the Safari browser), the potential for long-tail local advertising revenue, and the inevitable "Map It!" right-click option for every address, business name, etc. in Office documents and Windows apps.

They also have a Location Finder, which figures out your location from the MAC addresses of visible network routers, similar to the Intel-sponsored PlaceLab. I enjoyed Mike Liebhold's commentary on the Location Finder privacy policy that basically says, "we're not just a passive MAC-to-location database, we will use your information". I couldn't find a similar privacy statement for the Local Live service, other than the general MSN privacy text that also says "we'll use your information but not sell it".

As we get more sites like Local Live and Platial that invite you to contribute your data to The Service, we'll need to pay more attention to these pesky privacy documents. Although the Attention Trust brings on the same headache I get when people talk Semantic Web and networked trust relationships at me, I absolutely love their guiding principle: you own the data you create. As we go into this age of participation information networks, we can have the credit report model for our data (Big Brother owns it and we'll be lucky to see anything but an annual summary of the data they have on us) or something (anything!) else. If we don't demand ownership, privacy, and accountability at the start, it's unlikely we'll be able to retrofit it in later.