Foursquare: Social Media Game or Privacy Invasion?


Even if you don’t keep abreast of the most cutting-edge social media and technology ventures, you might have heard of Foursquare. The social media game allows users to post their location on Facebook and Twitter. Users then win "badges," such as the 9-5 badge that signifies that they've checked into their workplace location 15 out of the last 30 days. When they post a specific location more than anyone else over 30 days, they become “mayors” of that location.


Foursquare has raised some privacy and safety concerns because users
are announcing not only where they are – but where they aren’t (home, for instance). Some enterprising souls demonstrated this with a biting and funny website called pleaserobme.com While no longer active, when the site was created it posted an updated list of people who were not home based on their Foursquare posts. If they had previously posted their home's address, it was easy to show where on a map the empty home was located. For more about this site, check out Techcrunch's article.