OmniSky Corporation (Nasdaq:OMNY), an innovative provider of award-winning wireless applications and services, announced today that it is taking a leadership role in advocating users' right to location privacy and has joined the Wireless Location Industry Association (WLIA) as a Charter Member in order to help drive the adoption of a standards-based location privacy policy.
The WLIA's mission is to create positive awareness among consumers of the wireless location industry, which is creating products and services that add significant value to consumers -- and is an industry that fully respects the interests and rights of its customers. The wireless location industry has particular interest in protecting its customers' privacy rights, and is committed to the development and implementation of standards establishing responsible industry practices.
"At OmniSky, we take our users' right to location privacy very seriously and look forward to working with the WLIA and the industry to help create a privacy policy that protects our users' desire to have control over their location-based information," said Patrick McVeigh, chairman and CEO of OmniSky.
"The WLIA is thrilled to have OmniSky join our organization and we look forward to the valuable role they will play in helping the WLIA and the wireless location industry move forward in adopting a workable privacy policy that protects users' rights to location-based information," said John Jimison, executive director of the WLIA.
OmniSky has recently fortified its core software platform of proprietary technologies that will enable the company to offer subscribers location based services that allow subscribers to access location-based information and interact with a community of users by leveraging both online and cached data. Once integrated with the OmniSky core service, subscribers will be able to:
1. Locate and access comprehensive and media-rich information
about local restaurants, entertainment venues, and other businesses as a function of their location; view and interact with maps and receive directions to those businesses; and save this information on their handheld device;
2. Connect with merchants in person or online to complete a transaction, such as buying movie tickets or making restaurant reservations;
3. Identify the location of -- and invite other subscribers to -- an event or a place and send along pertinent data including the address and directions, which, in turn, can be saved on the handheld device; and
4. Engage in real-time communications and collaboration, including instant messaging, with friends and colleagues.
The company expects to roll out its location-based services in the next version of the OmniSky service, which is expected to launch this summer.
According to a recent International Data Corporation study, location-enabled subscribers in the U.S. are projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 74% to 149 million by 2005.
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