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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?