Social Networking –Where in the World Are You?

Social Networking –Where in the World Are You?

‘You have just become the Mayor of Tesco in foursquare!’ exclaims a message on my friends Twitter account.

I try to compose myself for a second and formulate some rational solution as to why this has happened. I can’t, and then my head fills with hundreds of questions, the most pertinent of which are “Why is my friend now the mayor of Tesco?” and “Is it possible to become the mayor of a supermarket?”.

After consulting a legal handbook I was no further to uncovering the truth about my friends somewhat dubious mayorship, so I decided to search for ‘foursquare’ on the internet.

What I stumbled across made me gawp in awe, but at the same time wince at all of its potentially evil uses.

Foursquare is a social networking application that uses a mobile internet connection to pinpoint where you are in the world. This information is then converted into a message that is sent out through your connected social media channels (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), essentially telling your friends, family and followers where you are. It turns out that my friend just started using this application and, on that day, he visited his local branch of Tesco six times. Because of his number of visits foursquare awarded him with the title ‘Mayor of Tesco’, thus the message was tweeted and everyone began to revere his new status. If you own this application and use it actively you are rewarded with badges based on location visits which are also broadcast to your friends and followers.

In many ways it’s the same as getting your passport stamped, but instead of visiting a foreign country you’re going grocery shopping… or down the pub. As amazing and wonderful as this technology is, I can’t help but think of the implications this has on personal privacy. Obviously you need to be signed up to foursquare to have your location pumped out onto the internet, but those that use it could be at risk of being targeted by criminals.

There was a website recently opened called Please Rob Me (http://www.pleaserobme.com) that highlighted the apparent dangers of over-sharing personal information. The website displayed a feed of people’s locations as they twittered them through foursquare. The people over at Please Rob me then took this feed and essentially said “Hey, these people aren’t in their houses… you’re free to rob them!”. Although the website wasn’t set up to help criminals, it proved a shocking example of just how sharing personal information through social networking websites can put you and your possessions at risk.

It is very interesting to see how things have changed in terms of information privacy on the web over the last few years. It is easy to remember a time when giving your name out on the internet was considered “virtual suicide”, but now we freely give away so much personal information someone could construct a biography out of it, and now people are readily giving up their whereabouts too.

Foursquare can be found here (http://foursquare.com/)