Facebook has announced on their recent conference that they’re adding some new features to their mobile apps. They are on 200 million mobile devices which is pretty impressive (and nearly on every single iphone) but I’m not sure the direction they’re heading is the right one.

Adding “deals” into “facebook places” gives us – well, deals – and that’s fine, we pay less for goods or services and we can be all thankful for it, right ? Well normally we would, but there’s this one little tiny detail that’s a little “wrong” here. The question “why?”. Sure the easy answer would be – to keep the #1 position in light of the recent myspace changes, but the real reason I think is a little different. “Places” itself tell facebook a lot of things about it’s users and now knowing which deals they used will actually make tham know anything but our thoughts. At least until there’s an app for that.

Sure many users don’t really mind because we’re being controlled all the time by governments and corporations, but I think some people don’t like others to know where they are. I never pay with a credit card at a club, maybe it’s my personal paranoia – but I will be turning the “Places” feature off. Along with the deals. At least most of the time. Keeping it constantly on would lead to even better advertising, tailored directly to us.

But we’ll see where it all leads after a few years anyway. Hopefully it won’t lead to <a href=”http://www.bp.com”> a disaster </a>. But we all know how facebook is when it comes to “privacy”.