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Foursquare Will Display Users' Full Names By Default
Location services can be useful and fun, but, depending on how paranoid ("cautious") you are, you might already dislike the idea of a social-network dashboard keeping track of where you are at a given moment. After all, bad guys can use computers, too.
Now, Foursquare may up your level of caution just a bit: CNET reports that "Beginning January 28, 2013, users' 'full names' will be displayed across the check-in service and venue owners will have increased access to users' check-in data, the company announced in an e-mail sent to users late last night." Users, though, "will still have control of the name displayed by altering their 'full name' in their settings," and can opt out of the increased flow of data to business owners. For users' sake, I hope Foursquare doesn't go in for the "real names" fetish to the extent that both Google and Facebook have.
Know they'll know my last name is Coward!!!
-- Anonymous
It's bad enough with fully, easily traceable public nicknames. The Internet has become something that I no longer want to have anything to do with. And yet there is no way to escape all this madness short of moving out to some cabin in the woods and living like a survivalist, which I really don't want.
You really try to reach out to people, but it's always in through one ear and out the other. They don't get it. They think you are crazy. It's maddening.
Even this site where I post this on, Slashdot, calls me an "Anonymous Coward" in an attempt to guilt-trip me into registering and logging in for anyone to track all my posts and violate my privacy.
The whole idea of "checking in" was ridiculous to me in the first place. It immediately reminded me of the cartoon where the clever mice give the cat a bell as a gift. Why should anybody be surprised if they want to amp up the level of stupidity an extra notch?
Publicity. And it seems to work, there are at least two articles in the interweb, and there will be at least two more when they "graciously reverse direction"...
Google Plus, Facebook, Foursquare - a lot of services are really pushing the boundaries at the moment. I suspect the social media backlash is going to begin pretty damn soon.
On a similar, on topic note: Did anyone who does sign in to youtube recently get 'tricked' by a box popping up, offering them the option to change their first / last name on the service? I got it and thought, "fantastic! I can finally login with a name other than my gmail mail alias" and attempted setting up a different name. BAM - it made me a Google+ profile which I didn't want.
Upon removing the profile, my videos are now tied to my "Google+ youtube account" - so anything I uploaded, any favourites, any comments are not available unless I re-create the account.
Heavy handed indeed and from the musings on the web, I'd say I'm not the only one who got stung by this.
As the song goes, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Welcome to the oppression of legitimate protest and criticism.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
So did you promptly post another review pointing out what the manager did and how you recommend no one visit that store ever?
That would have been about the best thing you could do. I realize that cutting yourself out of an in building place to eat lunch sucks, but a manager like that needs to be shit canned.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If they don't want their privacy violated they shouldn't be telling the whole world what they're doing on a minute by minute basis.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Agreed. Foursquare is dying. Facebook allows check-ins, so no one is using foursquare. So if your website is dying how do you get some press coverage? Make an outrageous claim that you're going to publish the full names and locations of all of your customers! Instant news coverage! 3 days later, claim due to "public outcry" you're changing your mind! Instant hero and more press! Thousands of new users sign up to the website! Marketing Basics 101 right there
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I am really proud of the fact that I don't know what "Foursquare" is.
I really don't need to know what all of my friends are saying and doing at all times of the day and night. Shit, life is too short.
I wonder how many twenty-somethings are going to hit 40 and realize that they spent more time updating their social networks than actually doing something.
You are welcome on my lawn.
speaking as an introvert, this is a false dichotomy. there's some truth to what you're saying, but overall it's just something introverts comfort themselves with, to feel like they have some kind of integrity, and to put off overcoming their limitations. of course, before i go on, i must say that extraverts have limitations as well.
i've known several extremely successful people who define their self worth in terms of what they can do, but challenge themselves by living and exhibiting it with their peers. they actively mentor those who are (at the moment) less accomplished, and they seek mentorship from those who are moreso. their extraversion leads to more utility and challenge of their own abilities.
this is not to say that extraversion is a superior strategy; there are those who, as you say, begin to define themselves through the shallow. also, extraverts can be annoyingly grating and pompous to their introverted peers who nonetheless ``walk softly and carry a big stick." every person they snub with their antics will be more inclined to vote against them when evaluations come around.
so, the challenge of the extravert is to not be a grating prick, while the challenge of the introvert is to benefit from other people. stereotypes like you present are only good in seeing the challenge; they are not the right way to live.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Foursquare, dying?
Do you have anything to back this up?
The enduring tendency of the human mind to hope for a good outcome.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!