While some online services are stepping up their efforts to protect private user data from government requests, there is plenty room for improvement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said on Thursday. It is time for all companies that hold private user data to make public commitments to defend their users against government overreach, the foundation said.

The announcement last week that the Wikimedia Foundation will switch from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap for its cartographic needs marks the latest in an increasingly long line of high-profile defections.

The makers of the mobile app Girls Around Me came under fire Monday for helping men to "stalk" unsuspecting women, but the incident also reveals how much we still have to learn about what social networks reveal about us.

The maps on smartphones and tablets soon may extend into buildings, but consumers and service providers won't use indoor maps the same as outdoor, participants in the location-based services business said on Wednesday.

The location-based mobile services industry is already lucrative but has to do a better job easing consumers' fears about invasion of privacy, some executives said on Wednesday at the GPS-Wireless conference.

Beer drinkers app, Untappd, is the new king of the hill

Soon FourSquare won't be the only cool kid on the location-based apps block: A new wave of startups, including Highlight, Zaarly, TaskRabbit and Localmind, are generating buzz at South by Southwest by drawing on smartphone location data to deliver a range of social, commercial and informational experiences.

Location-based social media service FourSquare this week abruptly swapped the Google Maps technology underlying its product for the OpenStreetMap, announcing a new partnership with startup MapBox.

One of the odd aspects of the Facebook event launching the new Facebook Places service was the participation, support, and partnership of competing location-based check-in services.

Suddenly, there are two kinds of people. The first kind loves location-based social networking services like Foursquare. They speak in an alien language about "Mayors" and "Badges" and broadcast their locations to the world.