Image: Yutaka Tsutano
You probably heard about the i-Free app Girls Around Me app, no doubt in the form of a tweet or Facebook link annotated with the message: ‘YIKES’ or something more blasphemous. If your friends do not keep you so up to date with creepy social network updates then allow me to explain. Girls Around Me was an app that allowed users to locate nearby women who had ‘checked in’ on the social network Foursquare.
Quite what they then did with this knowledge is a grey area. It is reasonably easy – if you are already outside – to work out where the girls are due to what I like to call Nature’s app, eyes. The app not only allowed users to find out the location of women on a map, but any publicly available data and photographs of the women from Facebook.
Quite what they then did with this knowledge is a grey area. It is reasonably easy – if you are already outside – to work out where the girls are due to what I like to call Nature’s app, eyes. The app not only allowed users to find out the location of women on a map, but any publicly available data and photographs of the women from Facebook.
After various blogs wondered whether the Girls Around Me app encouraged and normalised stalking Foursquare blocked access for the app, saying it “violated a policy against aggregating information across venues.”
The Russian app developer, i-Free Innovations commented to the Wall Street Journal that it was: “unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about the privacy concerns. We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the apps’ goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions.”
What was the apps’ goal or purpose before it got withdrawn? Apparently it helped users discover new venues in their vicinity. Venues with hot girls inside. They’re aesthetes! What are you gonna do?
What were the 70, 000 people who downloaded the app planning? To approach you with a peculiarly in depth knowledge of your favourite films, ‘oh, you like Mean Girls? ME TOO!’ and opinion on Kony?
It’s a good wake up call to what you make available on any of the social network sites you might use. However it also brings up, again, the question of consent. Social network privacy policies change all the time, it’s quite possible to think your photos are private as they are beamed across the local area via an app to some stranger’s phone. Should you be flattered your foursquare check in has filled the venue? Or disturbed you’re pretty much being used for free advertising?
Kate
The Russian app developer, i-Free Innovations commented to the Wall Street Journal that it was: “unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about the privacy concerns. We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the apps’ goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions.”
What was the apps’ goal or purpose before it got withdrawn? Apparently it helped users discover new venues in their vicinity. Venues with hot girls inside. They’re aesthetes! What are you gonna do?
What were the 70, 000 people who downloaded the app planning? To approach you with a peculiarly in depth knowledge of your favourite films, ‘oh, you like Mean Girls? ME TOO!’ and opinion on Kony?
It’s a good wake up call to what you make available on any of the social network sites you might use. However it also brings up, again, the question of consent. Social network privacy policies change all the time, it’s quite possible to think your photos are private as they are beamed across the local area via an app to some stranger’s phone. Should you be flattered your foursquare check in has filled the venue? Or disturbed you’re pretty much being used for free advertising?
Kate
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