That's right, part of the data package it delivers to Palm includes your GPS location, according to Joey Hess, on top of ever webOS app you use, and how long you use it:

The first thing sent is intended to be my GPS location. It's the same location I get if I open the map app on the Pre. Not very accurate in this case, but I've seen it be accurate enough to find my house before.

{ "errorCode": 0, "timestamp": 1249855555954.000000, "latitude": 36.594108, "longitude": -82.183260, "horizAccuracy": 2523, "heading": 0, "velocity": 0, "altitude": 0, "vertAccuracy": 0 }

Which their privacy policy totally allows.

Pre Central makes the most out of the info, breaking down their privacy policy and who they're allowed to share it with.

Palm will most definitely be attempting to "clear up" this bit of information, but in the meantime, what's apparent is that the Pre uploads your GPS location to Palm to the best of its ability, and that's just feels a little creepy, even if we're all totally used to broadcasting our location all the time anyway.

Update: As expected, Palm comes through with a clarification, via PhoneScoop:

"Palm takes privacy very seriously, and offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off. Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer's information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust." [emphasis ours]

As Eric notes, they don't exactly mention how to opt out, though. But yes, ordinary enough. [Joey Hess, Pre Central]

You know what happens next: She tracked her phone (and the thief carrying it) in real-time, told the police exactly where this douchebag was, and he got arrested. Case closed. Like the guy who stole somebody's iPod and kept the playlist—a new kind of fingerprint—or the guy who sent emails from his victim's iPhone.

Not everyone has their phone lo-jacked with this kind of location service yet, but in a Twittered world, it doesn't seem far off. Could this kind of petty theft go obsolete one day? I doubt it, but it's a nice thought. And scary, since it means someone's watching you too. [CBS5 via TechCrunch]

The Epson Infineon is a 12th generation GPS transmitter/receiver built upon a 65nm manufacturing process. Just 2.8 × 2.9mm (or 25% smaller than any A-GPS on the market), it's still powerful enough to communicate with satellites indoors, tracking you to the Motel 6 before your loved one discovers you—living a second life in which you rent Motel 6 rooms just to hang out and watch bad cable alone. [News via Engadget]

Google's released Latitude, a Maps tool that allows for automatic tracking of friends in real time, using a laptop, Symbian 60, Blackberry, WinMo and soon, iPhone or Android.

Laptops and cellphones (when not using GPS) can locate to a fair level of accuracy using geotagged Wi-Fi and cellular tower points in a database that Google's collected on its own, perhaps while doing Streetview photography. Or you can set your location manually. Google told me that there's no set standard for how often the map updates your location. Rather, they have an algorithm that depends on how often the device has moved, historically, and how much battery your device has left. You can also sign out of the service entirely, and set per user preferences on whether or not certain friends can see your location at all, or if only on city-levels of accuracy.

Google says its been useful for family members to find out if they're stuck in traffic, or on their way home. I tested the service with some people I know, but its been hard to say if its useful for a guy who has loved ones in generally predictable places. I generally know where my friends are, more or less, or can find out by texting them. I'd probably use this service more often while skiing or picking up friends at the airport, but not day to day. I mean, sure, I can turn off my privacy, but wouldn't people used to seeing your location at all times be suspicious if you suddenly turned off permissions when you want privacy?

Then again, maybe it would be nice to know when my father is playing golf in HK (all the time) or when Lisa is eating at her favorite place in Tokyo for Ramen, or where my brother is on tour with his band. That would be interesting, I suppose. But most of the time, most of us are in front of our computers. Until we're not. And that's where the phone clients come in.

Most phones will be able to keep the map location updated in the background. Except the iPhone. What the iPhone users can do, as a work around, is to lock the phone with the Google app running. That'll keep the phone updating until batteries die.

The Blackberry, WinMo and Symbian phones and laptops/Desktops can use Latitude now by downloading the most recent version of Google Maps or hitting Http://google.com/latitude. The iPhone gets it with an updated version of the increasingly powerful Google app, soon, as does the Android powered G1.

We just tested it ourselves and got to within 24m accuracy, which is pretty darn good for sitting on a couch inside a house. It's free, and you should download it now. Don't be confused with the other app named Here I am, which is much lousier. This one has an envelope icon. Grab that one here.

Stupid note: When you send an email, the subject reads "hereIam", which looks a lot like "HereLam" when read on the iPhone. Seeing as I was testing it out by sending my location to Lam, it was kind of funny. Thus ends the most boring anecdote you will read today.

Multi-recipient SMS is exactly what it sounds like. Pick more than one recipient, send a message, and it gets delivered to everyone. What's nice is that this set of people get saved as a "conversation" so you can send more messages to them without having to type in their names again.

Icon reorganization: same as what we've seen before. Hold down an icon, everything starts shaking, then you can drag stuff around to a new location. Drag an icon to the edge of the screen to get to the next or previous page. Swipe left and right to switch pages.

Webclips also works as advertised, letting you to bookmark a page onto your home screen. There's nothing special about this other than the fact that you can remember a specific part of the page and go to it every time.

In addition, the Hava wasn't nearly as customizable as the Slingbox. It has no real favorites, you can't tweak its settings, there's not enough IR codes for your current boxes, and a few other shortcomings that resulted because it's a first generation release. Perhaps after an iteration or two, Hava can pose more of a threat to Sling's location-shifting dominance. – Jason Chen

Hands on with HAVA [Zatz not Funny]