The Magazine

Foursquare alters API to eliminate apps like Girls Around Me

15

on May 10th, 2012

Last month, foursquare found themselves embroiled in a privacy row after CultofMac reported about an app that was using publicly available foursquare data to find girls (or guys) in a particular area. Foursquare moved quickly to ban the app from using their API, but had no way to prevent new apps from popping up and doing essentially the same thing. On Tuesday, foursquare API evangelist Akshay Patil announced a change to the API that should eliminate such privacy concerns, while maintaining the general usefulness of the “here now” feature of the apps.

The change — which will be implemented in early June, giving app developers time to adjust — eliminates the ability for users to see the strangers who are checked in to a venue without being checked in to the same venue themselves (“much like how the users could see each other by looking around in real life,” says Patil in the announcement). Users will still be able to see where their friends are checked in whether they’re checked in to the same venue or not.

Creepy apps like Girls Around Me and Nock Nock rely on the data foursquare provides about stranger locations to display a list of people who are checked in nearby filtered by gender. Without that data available in the foursquare API, they become worthless, since they’ll only be able to see your friends’ locations at any place you’re not currently checked in.

Eliminating that data, though, also has an effect on some less-creepy apps that are designed to help you find strangers you should meet nearby. Sonar, whose “places” tab uses results from foursquare to show random strangers nearby so it can determine if you have any shared interests or friends, is one of those apps. CEO Brett Martin says the impact of the change will be minor for his app:

Sonar leverages data from across a number of sources, including Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, so our users’ experience will not be negatively impacted. We work closely with Foursquare and are already in the process of making some minor adjustments on the back-end to accommodate the Foursquare API changes.

Assisted Serendipity, an early favorite of foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, relies exclusively on the “here now” data to find venues where the gender ratio has tipped in your favor. Without individual user data for strangers, it essentially heads to the dead pool.

Most foursquare users are unlikely to notice the change, which will also affect foursquare’s official apps. They’ll be able to see other people that they’ve checked in with, but won’t be able to browse other venues to see who’s checked in nearby (unless they’re friends, of course). That’s not an incredibly popular use case for the app anyway, especially as it shifts more toward social discovery and less toward friend finding.

This change patches foursquare’s only real security hole, finally restricting all personal location data strictly to friends the user has explicitly accepted or people who are checked in to the same place (where they could see you and report your location anyway). Foursquare has always been a safe service when used properly, but this should put to rest the final doubts anyone may have about signing up and sharing their location.

What do you think of the change? Will you miss finding strangers at places you’re not checked in? Does this make you feel more secure about sharing your location data?

  • http://mikesilverman.com Mike

    Kudos. This is a nice compromise that preserves the ability of Foursquare app users to meet people checked into the same venue while eliminating the ability of creepos to “scrape” checked-in data from multiple venues for nefarious purposes.

  • Mike

    But will it still say “xxx here” on the venue pages?

    • Chris Thompson

      Yes, it’ll still have numbers, just not personal details.

  • http://www.foursquareseattle.wordpress.com Rob W

    With the update, will it still show how many people are checked into a venue (when you aren’t checked in)? I’m wondering how this will impact the Trending category under the Explore tab since it eliminates being able to see who’s checked in without being checked in.

    • Chris Thompson

      Yes, you’ll still be able to see the number of people checked in, just not who they are.

  • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

    They need to block the “who’s here” list from users in “rapid fire mode,” before somebody creates a venue-sweeper app that checks into lots of nearby venues in quick succession.

    • http://mikesilverman.com Mike

      I think it is rate-limited, you can only check into 3 venues in a 15-minute period, if I ma not mistaken

      • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

        I think you’re wrong, and didn’t understand what I wrote.

      • Chris Thompson

        There’s nothing stopping you from checking in to as many as you want. You’ll just end up not getting any points because you’re in “rapid fire” mode.

    • Chris Thompson

      There will need to be some sort of rate limit, for sure. Someone who’s really determined could get at the information.

  • http://www.almediapage.info/ Tom Servo

    I guess this is a fair compromise on security, but when you’re using an app to shout out that you’ve checked in to a public venue, how much privacy should you expect?

    • Chris Thompson

      Total. Complete. 100%. I have absolutely zero desire to share my location publicly. I’m happy for my friends to know it, but I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry to have access to it. Call me old fashioned. :)

  • Tarmo

    In theory, there is a way how 3rd party apps could simulate that soon to be missing feature. I am not sure how to explain it well enough, but instead of one user asking who is checked-in venues around me, apps could show checked-in users, which are aggregated by multiple users.
    So it doesn’t matter if the “creepy” has checked-in that place, it only matters if anyone who uses the same app (or same developer’s other app) is checked-in around the “creepy”.
    Even if they limit it to show only friends in the future, it is possible to aggregated that data from multiple app users.

    I will keep my “Include me in the public list” privacy setting unchecked and I hope my friends will not use shady apps.

  • Two K

    There’s an app called “Oust.me” that uses Foursquare to play off of.
    Did you know that it pinpoints EXACTLY the location of any venue a Oust player check in to?? That includes Homes, a venue category that Foursquare intentionally obscures even from SU’s. Any way anyone can convince Foursquare to force Oust to NOT SHOW Home venues ?!?!

    • Chris Thompson

      You’d have to talk to the Oust creators about that. They’re not affected by this because ALL of their data is coming from users who’ve opted in to the service, so it’s a perfectly legitimate use of the information. That being said, I agree that it would probably be best if they simply ignored home venues altogether.

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