Last night, one of our own got a terrifying lesson in what can go wrong with the hot new location-based social technology:
@CarriBugbee : Deleting FourSquare. 2 strangers called me @ restaurant I was at after seeing my updates on PleaseRobMe.com. One called me a "stupid bitch."
When the controversial new site called Please Rob Me emerged recently, with its mission of exposing the possible pitfalls of the current geo-location craze, it all felt somewhat abstract. Yes, it's eerie to see familiar faces and know exactly where they are -- one of the Bay Area's most famous business leaders, for example, just checked in to FourSquare from a building in Washington, D.C. But who ever believes the bad stuff is going to happen to them?
Which is exactly why the founders of PleaseRobMe created the site: "On one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home. The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz, etc."
If you're checking-in via a location-sharing site to a local restaurant and pushing these updates out to your public Twitter stream, as social innovator @CarriBugbee did, you're telling the world that you aren't home. Which could mean that your home is ripe for burglary -- or that you're ripe for stalking. Those of us who work in the social media realm frequently get so enthused about new technology, wanting to beta-test all things new, that we sometimes forget about the potential dark side. We forget about friends who may get over-zealous with our personal information -- like a home address. These personal privacy threats certainly exist throughout social media -- but seldom in such a physical and potentially dangerous way. Identity theft absolutely sucks. But it's not the same as coming home and finding your grandmother's jewelry missing or wondering who's following you in that shadowy parking lot.
PleaseRobMe's Twitter account has been shut down, supposedly for suspicious (spammy) activity. But the original site is still up and running and scaring the heck out of me every time I see check-ins from my friends.
Should you delete your FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt or Brightkite accounts? Or is it possible to practice safe location-sharing? I'd love to hear from you about this via @guruofnew.
Comments
well....so you got called a name, which sux but isn't exactly "scary." or not to me, at least. but...how did they know your phone number? and how would they connect your update to your home address? (i mean, unless you somehow linked them online, which i'd say: don't do). otherwise, the only threats will be, um, one's friends i guess. but they can also see you're out just by running into you, and could easily leave and rob your house then, right? it seems that the best advice isn't necessarily to not use location stuff but to not link to your home address, or to make it sound like someone's home in your update. (i got robbed last yr, btw, but i wasn't using location services and in fact, had just arrived after 8 years in hawaii two days before. it happens.) i'm still wondering how they knew your phone number? (and if they got it from the site's data base, the service needs to know that, i'd assume.)
You know what might be an interesting idea is a site where we can posts our locations and then the site generates another location that may or may not be the same one we're at. Not really all that useful, but certainly a fun experiment.
As my original tweet stated (above), the stalkers called me at the restaurant where I checked in. Apparently my FourSquare updates appeared on PleaseRobMe.com. My cell phone number isn't posted anywhere online and they did not call my cell.
My home address isn’t linked or listed anywhere online (by me). I’ve also never checked into any geo apps at my home or even let my iPhone “choose my location” at home. However, it doesn’t take a super-sleuth to track down that kind of information. If you’ve ever had a land-line, you know it’s next to impossible to get the phone company to stop listing your number – they screw that up all the time. Only Dick Cheney has managed to obliterate his home from the Interwebz. And I’ll bet anyone willing to look hard enough can find him too.
The point is, if you’re online at all, people can find out where you live and when you're gone. And we've made it easy for them.
@CarriBugbee
So sorry to hear about your experience. Thank you for sharing with us. I enjoy Foursquare, too...but I play without linking the check-ins to my Twitter account. Has anyone seen anything negative come of a non-linked account?
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