Privacy and Social Media – Part II: Foursquare

This is part of my ongoing series in social media privacy, please read the exciting introduction here.

1. Introduction
2. Foursquare
3. Facebook updated 5/6/2010
4. Twitter – coming soon.

Foursquare
Let me start by saying since this application relates to my personal, physical location, I am a bit more careful about who I share that information with.

• First, I only friend people I actually know, so letting them see my phone number and email is both helpful and beneficial.
• Second, I do check the “see the links to my Twitter and Facebook”. However, I only have my twitter feed linked as that’s something the “people” can see (not just the friends I specify). I keep my Twitter as anoynomus as practical, but my Facebook account has everything about me. If I want to keep some information private on Foursquare it would do me no service to instead just give my would-be stalker my Facebook profile.
• Next, “Who’s here” list. I shuffle back and forth on this one. My logic is, why not show it? More than likely the person who’s seeing that is physically (yes, it’s very easy to just check in from anywhere too) at the same event as me, so the benefits of meeting other people outweigh my need for privacy here.
• Note my Twitter settings. I don’t broadcast my Foursquare activity out, although I might decide one day to send out “mayor” and “badge” information. This is because “[o]n Twitter, anyone can follow you without your permission (assuming you have an unlocked account).” – Bruno Trani dot info. So I don’t want to lock-down info in my Foursquare account just to turn-around and broadcast it to the whole world on Twitter.

A picture can say a thousand words…

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