I would like to be able to see where my friends are from, just general regions.
When I make new friends I send them a postcard from my area, or at least from my time zone, and they usually return a postcard, hopefully from their general vicinity. Then, as confirmation, if they invite you to a battle and they are the initial participant, you can assume that maybe the battle location is their general region. It may take a couple of battle invites before you can have more confidence in their location.