Fire Eagle allows users to store their location data on the Web for access by any network service. For example, wireless users can upload their location and share it with family, friends or colleagues. It could make short work of finding someone in a crowded venue.

Yahoo calls Fire Eagle a "geo-aware" platform.

Users must sign up for the free service at fireeagle.yahoo.net to use applications. Once logged in they can choose varying levels of privacy -- from exact location to none, and customize who can access that location. Users can update information automatically through Web, mobile or desktop applications, or set the service to manual update only.

Yahoo seems adamant about keeping privacy and permission sacrosanct, perhaps in response to recent testimony before Congress about the use of private data by networking companies. Yahoo has testified before the subcommittee that oversees Web business.

Tracking Yourself

Applications on the platform include Ekit Travel Journal, which lets users share their travel itinerary, travel notes, and photos. If you're ever called on to testify about your whereabouts, dipity might help -- the service tracks your locations and makes a timeline of your comings and goings.

Dash updates your Fire Eagle location data by using in-car GPS systems. Perhaps this might be useful on long solo road trips to reassure the folks back home.

Brightkite is advertised as a social network, allowing you to log in and check who in your network is where and what's happening at your favorite places. Perhaps the most useful Fire Eagle application is Lightpole, which signals items of interest in your vicinity such as restaurants, clubs, theaters and the like. Metosphere does similar duty on an iPhone.

Outalot allows you to specifically look up types of places in your vicinity. Need a burrito? Look it up.

Privacy Concerns

To ward off potential problems with minors, Fire Eagle is limited to Yahoo users 18 or older. Tom Coates, head of product development for Fire Eagle, said, "We have to make sure we're going about this the right way, that people are using the technology appropriately and with full consent."

Coates would not rule out future parent features, including applications that could track where children's cell phones are. "We have to give these things some thought," he said. "There are some gray areas here." (continued...)

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