Off the grid checkins no longer earn you badges or mayorships
In a nice move to help enhance user privacy, foursquare announced on Friday that off the grid checkins will no longer unlock badges or earn mayorships. They will, however, still count toward the checkins required for those badges or mayorships.
What is an off the grid checkin? Each time you check in, foursquare gives you the option to share it with your friends. If you choose “no,” you’ll be checked in “off the grid.” Your friends won’t be able to see where you are, but it will still show up in your history. It’s a great tool for people who use foursquare to track the places they go, but don’t necessarily want to share them all with their friends. It could be that you’re on a date or checking in at your child’s school, or some other location you don’t want to be public.
Previously, these checkins could unlock badges or award mayorships even though they were meant to be private. If you’re checking in off the grid at your child’s school for privacy reasons, for instance, the last thing you want is to earn the mayorship and have it show up on the school’s venue page or your own profile page. You could resign the mayorship, but it’s there for everyone to see until you get to a desktop computer to remove it.
With the new rules, those off the grid checkins will still count toward the mayorship or any badges you could earn, but will only award them if you choose to make a public checkin at some point in the future.
What do you think of the change? Is it a good move for privacy?
UPDATE (1/31/11): Foursquare has changed their policy again. Off the grid checkins can now unlock badges but not mayorships.
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Yeah, that’s a good move – no one can still my mayorship silently
Umm, let me get this right.
So, let’s say I’m 1 check-in away from the 9 to 5 badge, and on my 15th check-in, it was done “off the grid”. I will not unlock the badge only until my 16th check-in done normally…?
Badges earned off the grid didn’t show the badge unlock location anyway, as I recall.
Anyway, this change seems to have freaked out some of the cheaters at Matters of Grey. I can’t figure out why it’s so important to them. Did they think checking in off the grid made their cheating less obvious? It didn’t!
Good deal. I often checking to places I am mayor of but not necessarily want everyone to know. I feel bad not giving others a chance to be mayor of my spot so for me this is a good thing.
Guys, Ill post off the grid and you can be mayor someday! LOL.
stupid move.
Pretty lame actually and makes me less interested in Four Square. Sometimes you jsut want to see if there is a premium location near with a coupon or discount? Wont be visiting as often for sure.
I’m not sure what that has to do with checking in off the grid? You can see deals without checking in at all. Can you elaborate?
Interesting. I never realized off-the-grid check-ins did earn you badges or mayorships. Obviously this won’t effect me much, then.
FINALLY! It always bugged me
[...] = "666666"; Inchecken zonder dat je vrienden kunnen zien waar je bent, levert vanaf vandaag geen mayor-titels en badges op. Wel tellen de checkins mee in de aanloop naar het behalen van de badges of [...]
Sad news
Good to know. One more step toward clamping down on all those Indonesians cheating to get their badges!
Off the grid check-ins also no longer appear in the fried timeline on Android. The one that sticks is the last on the grid check-ins.
I realized this when one of my friends who checks in 100 times a week (mostly off the grid) is still showing his last check-in as Saturday.
I hated getting ousted and not sent an email because the user was checking in off the grid, (probably late at night after the venue was shut!)
Good move.
After trying to deal with this change I have to say I am disappointed.
For starters, off the grid check-ins do NOT actually count towards mayorships. After testing a few locations I have noticed that I am always the same number of days away from a mayorship, even when I know the person I am trying to take it from is away on holidays. It’s not me competing with an unknown.
Secondly, I have had to turn off being kept up to date with friends check-ins as I am sick of having my phone constantly going off with updates. Before, friends may check into a shopping centre and then politely check into places there off the grid so I knew where they were but didn’t need to follow them every step of the way.
I have to admit, this is making it unpleasant to say the least.
Lately I got badges from checking in off the grid…not sure if the same system still apply.
About off the grid counts toward mayorship, still unknown about the accuracy. I guess since everyone can hide their check ins so the counting system might only update the ‘day away’ numbers from the previous mayor that you started competing with(when hiding)…. if the mayor has changed during your hiding, people will think they are nearly there but actually they are still competing with the previous mayor.
Just a guess
Is there a way to public “off the grid” places? I did it by mistake..but can’t find a way to make them public…
thanks!
First, places aren’t made off the grid, just individual checkins. For a brief period, there was an option to change private (off the grid) checkins to public ones, but it’s since disappeared. I don’t know if it will ever be back.