I have to admit, with a mixture of sheepishness and “meh”, that when it comes to personal technology and social networking, I tend to be a few years behind the curve. I didn’t jump on the Facebook or Twitter bandwagons until 2009; I don’t own a smartphone and I’ve never used picture mail or the camera on my feeble little LG; I rock a 5 year old beast of an iPod that goes through batteries like it’s going out of style … Hell, I don’t even have a laptop or netbook to speak of – the ultimate sin of someone who professes to <3 technology. Still, there are times when I feel a sort of pride in being a little old school - most often when I start hearing troubling accounts of the newest iPhone app or weird web phenomenon (see my post about Chatroulette) gone awry. Amongst the fascinating labyrinth of articles in my busy Google Reader this weekend, there were a number of tidbits surrounding Foursquare, a web and mobile phone app introduced last year that now boasts over 450,000 members.

What’s the point of Foursquare? Glad you asked! It allows members to “check in” when they visit a new location throughout their day – be it a movie theater, a gas station, their place of employment, you name it. Users can then earn points and unlock badges for visiting certain locations – which, for some particularly competitive and boastful folks, is all the fodder that was needed to make the service a huge success. The sad part is that the lure of gaining a shiny, pixel-based and meaningless badge has overshadowed common sense to such a degree that a new trend has emerged – and a frightening one at that. Forget cyber stalking … In 2010, it’s all about Foursquare stalking.

“I see you … and I’m watching you.”

Here’s how Foursquare works to enable stalkers. By utilizing the GPS inside your phone, every time you arrive at a new location, the app asks you if you’d like to check in – and then broadcasts your location to your Foursquare friends. This alone might not be particularly worrying – after all, many of us have expressed to friends that we were going to the movies or taking a vacation. But more and more Foursquare users are opting to broadcast their check-ins to other social networking streams – and unless you have tightly protected and privatized Twitter and Facebook accounts, this practice could definitely spell bad news bears. To give an example, a creepy first-person account was posted at TwiTip about the dangers of publicly notifying your social networking kin that you’re not at home. This fella was working at a coffee shop when someone called on the cafe’s business line asking to speak with him, posing as a “concerned neighbor”, and claiming that his apartment was being robbed. The whole thing turned out to be a prank – or perhaps a pointed wake-up call at how easily this checking in business could be exploited.

Last month, a few Dutch developers took a more “in your face” approach and launched PleaseRobMe.com, which caught the attention of many of the major internet and social networking blogs. Mashable wrote about the site, which aggregates live Foursquare check-ins that have been posted to public Twitter streams. It’s eye-opening stuff, seeing how ignorant people about broadcasting their locations. For example, by clicking on one of the most recent check-in listings and scanning through the last page of her Twitter account, I found her full name and picture, a list of places she regularly hangs out, and her place of employment. I’m willing to bet she’s also on Facebook, and with a little crafty maneuvering I could probably get her to accept a friend request – at which point there’s no telling all the information I could collect about her. It sketches me out just thinking about it – but this guy actually tested the theory, and the results were alarming.

All of this leads me to wondering … Why use Foursquare to begin with? I only had a vague notion of what it was before I read those articles, and even with my scant knowledge of it, I thought it sounded pointless. I guess some people like the idea that they could check in somewhere, and maybe some nearby friends would drop in for an impromptu meet-up. But so could your ex-lover. So could one of your parents. So could that creepy dude from your Comp-Sci lab who’s been secretly pining over you for months.

Am I’m just being paranoid? Is there something about the positive aspects or purpose of Foursquare that I’m missing? Maybe its popularity is just a product of the changing landscape of internet transparency. Back in January, Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook), was interviewed about the sweeping privacy policy changes that were put into effect in December, which rendered ALL previously private account information to be completely public and searchable. Many users hastily rushed to rectify this upheaval in their settings, but thousands (perhaps millions) of others have been ignorant of the changes. He offered a vague explanation, saying that people are so used to sharing their information online, it’s become a “social norm”. I don’t know – I still think that people can maintain some semblance of privacy online, and more importantly, they should. Being over-exposed on the interwebs can lead to troublesome situations – and I don’t mean “exposed” in the smexy, amateur pornography manner. (Where can I sign up for a service that informs me when my friends are nekkid? That would RAWK!)

Do any of you use Foursquare? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Oh, and as I was writing this post, I peeped into my Twitter and a pop-up box asked me to turn on geo-location for my account. Jeezy Creezy, where does it end? I think I’mma go hibernate for a while.

I wonder if they have Wi-Fi?

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