american-english

So I recently signed up for a website called Foursquare. A few of you may use it, a few of you might be obsessed with it, and a few of you might not give a shit at all. I was more of the latter before I decided, in the name of research of course, to give it a shot. I'm not linking my profile here because I really don't want everyone to know about my daily trips to Dairy Queen to appease my fatness.

For those who don't know, Foursquare is a website where you "check in" from various places in order to gain points. At first blush, this seems like shameless marketing data collection in the guise of social networking. Then you realize all social networking these days (thanks, in part, to Facebook's new privacy rape policy) is basically shameless marketing data collection. When you check in to a certain place more than anyone else has, you become "Mayor" and get a little crown. I'm not sure if I want anyone to know I'm the mayor of Office Depot or Steak and Shake. If you were me and were raised with one parent who lived through the Detroit riots and the other who worked in law enforcement for nearly 30 years you realize that Foursquare is probably going to kill you.

An issue has been made about how, even though only your friends can see what you're doing at any given moment, anyone who has your Foursquare username can click on your page and find the places where you are "Mayor." Basically, they know where you go most often. Is that creepy? Kinda. Is it dangerous? Probably not. Anyone who is going to stalk you can do it with or without technology. Getting location pings from you only makes it slightly easier. But then again, if they're any sort of stalker they probably already know your schedule, right?

Really, when it comes down to it, do you really care what the hell I'm doing? Personally, I couldn't care less how many pounds of dog food you got on sale at Petsmart. But with nearly 1 million users, someone obviously does.