while there's no denying the potential usefulness of such a service, the specter of "Big Brother" like location tracking has privacy advocates raising the alarm. Privacy experts such as Lauren Gelman,executive director of Stanford law School's center for internet and Society wonder, "How are we going to get all the benefits that come from doing geo-location without sacrificing people's privacy?
to date, wireless location-based services remain largely unregulated. The wireless communications and public safety Act (often called the "911 Act") added the term "location" to the definition of customer proprietary network information (CPNI) held by telecommunication carrier, to make it eligible for certain privacy protections offered by the communications Act of 1934. The 911 Act also required that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) establish rules regarding how telecommunications carriers treat CPNI. The FCC did so in July 2002, adopting an approach that requires an individual's affirmative consent (opt-in) for some circumstances and assuming consent is granted unless an individual indicates otherwise (opt-out) in others.
the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act required the Fcc to issue rules to protect wireless subscribers from unwanted mobile service commercial messages, and provides that consumers can list their cell phone numbers in the national Do Not Call Registry. in August 2004, the FCC proposed regulations, most of which went into effect in October 2004.the FCC prohibits sending wireless commercial e-mail messages unless the individual addressee has given the sender express prior authorization. The FCC also created a publicly available list of wireless domain names list used for mobile service messaging so that senders of commercial mail could more easily determine which addresses are directed at mobile services. In 2009 , the law was used to force three firms responsible for the infamous "car warranty" scam cell phone calls to cease and pay restitution to consumers.