Instagram Could Soon Share Your Location History With Facebook
Instagram is reportedly testing a new feature that will enable the app to share your location history with its parent company, Facebook. The feature, which is opt-in by default, will essentially use your phone’s location services to track your location and share it with Facebook.
Allowing Instagram to share your location history with Facebook will allow Facebook to see your complete location history, likely even if you don’t have the Facebook app itself installed. Facebook could then use this data to provide more relevant ads, and “improve Facebook.”
Facebook wants to do more with your location data, though. The company wants to better help you explore what’s around you with your location history from Instagram. It’s even building a new map view for all your friends to see who’s around you, much like Snapchat’s Snap Map feature.
Instagram is increasingly getting new Facebook integrations. The company earlier started testing displaying notifications from Facebook on Instagram, as well as a direct link to open Facebook from the app. And all of that is happening just as Instagram’s original founders left the company.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly been pressuring Instagram’s founders internally, leading them to leave the company. Instagram now has a new head leading the company and the product, who’s likely going to better respect Zuckerberg’s wishes, so things could get really interesting in the coming months. In other words, if you love Instagram and everything about it, you should probably start worrying.