PleaseRobMe.com …the natural consequence of Open Social Networks that feature location data?
On this blog I regularly discuss the privacy issues that are posed by community sites that require members to expose their personal details. I do this because singles who use dating sites are often very vulnerable to these threats and because my company (The 3G Dating Agency) has been designed to offer a safer alternative by enabling members to communicate openly but without the need to reveal anything but a screen name until they feel comfortable revealing their personal details.
A new website called “Please Rob Me” has been built to show how people who are tweeting their location exactly how careless they are being.
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; 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. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face”
The goal of the website is to raise awareness of this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. “Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information”
Here are a few examples:
