SAN FRANCISCO – Location-based services (LBSs) have been a popular focal point in the past few years, but typically the discussions center around the privacy and security concerns inherent in knowing where the consumer is any point in time. At the CTIA IT Entertainment & Wireless show this week, however, it was clear the tides are beginning to change for LBS. A number of vendors, carriers and application developers were eager to show off their new services and how they could enhance the end-user experience. The use case for LBS is extending far beyond just GPS or mapping technology; rather, location is quickly becoming a staple of any popular mobile application.

“There is a neat opportunity to explode the market for location; not just as an application, but as a feature of lots of other applications,” Joel Grossman, vice president of product management for WaveMarket said, adding that he hopes this explosion will occur as privacy concerns and security concerns are fully overcome.

By forming relationships with Sprint, Alltel and several international carriers, WaveMarket has positioned itself as a leader in LBS as it relates to family tracking. Still, even with a solid track record, many customers took issue with the level of access that services like family tracking gave to carriers. In response to this, the vendor this week introduced Veriplace, a technology that Grossman said the company has had in place for years but is being marketed now to assure consumers their location is being handled with discretion.

Grossman described Veriplace as a powerful auditing tool; a privacy layer added onto LBS. Carriers can provide the baseline guidelines for locating as well as cut off any company that violates the policy at any time, and consumers can take it from there. Veriplace alerts end users when a pre-approved company wants to access their location, and consumers are given the chance to decline or accept. WaveMarket’s Veriplace will also be included in Navteq’s Network for Developers Web site to give members preferred access to the Veriplace API documentation, case studies, support and other information.

“This is in response to carriers having a lot of prospects but wanting to protect themselves from legal action,” Grossman said. “It’s an evolution of our natural business…As carriers open up, there’s an opportunity for us and them to market this.”