
The Foursquare of today is a location data giant - AznHisoka
https://www.wired.com/story/you-may-have-forgotten-foursquare-it-didnt-forget-you/
======
abalone
_> Foursquare knows where they are in real time, because it powers many widely
used apps, from Twitter, to Uber, to TripAdvisor, to AccuWeather._

Holy crap, does Foursquare get your Uber location data and associate it with
other services like Twitter?

This is starting to sound like a mini-Facebook. Call me cynical but I bet the
only reason Crowley is even talking about this now is because they're trying
to get ahead of the reckoning that's coming to Facebook for these kinds of
data practices. He's positioning 4square as all innocent "hey we dunno if this
is cool or creepy, let's ask people.." But is he really? Or is it an effort to
_appear_ like they are being transparent? If they really cared they would make
it clear what they know about you. But you can bet they won't because _nobody_
wants Foursquare tracking your Uber destinations and associating it with your
Twitter profile or anything else.

~~~
h3throw
No. Uber gets location data FROM Foursquare.

EDIT: That is, the API call doesn't include info about the individual.
Foursquare wouldn't know who the individual is for whom the request was made.
Except, perhaps, in rare circumstances where they tried correlating them,
themselves. Even then, Uber mostly uses it not to understand where a user is
but rather the types of locations at a given address.

~~~
abalone
_> No. Uber gets location data FROM Foursquare._

This doesn't make sense and contradicts the article. Don't apps have to send
coordinates to Foursquare to get location names? Foursquare then holds onto
that data and tracks you. Perhaps also matching it to other services with a
unified ID.

Update to your edit: The article strongly implies that Foursquare has figured
out how to associate location data from multiple services into a single view.
Apps that use Foursquare are feeding Foursquare very detailed location data
about you, even if they're only using it to look up location names. It means
Foursquare is getting all your Uber destinations and all your geotagged social
media posts. The article literally describes how they've taken this data and
turned you into a "card" that tracks your ID across services:

 _He taps on one profile, called “Harry,” and a pie chart pops up that details
the habits of the real person associated with that advertising ID. “Harry
spends a lot of time in Midtown, sometimes goes to parks, and rides the
subway,” Crowley says, looking over the data Foursquare has assembled from the
person’s use of popular apps and geotagging services._

~~~
kenneth
Various apps use Foursquare's API to query what is at a specific coordinate.
Foursquare knows what queries were made by a unique device. That's it. Not
sure why this is so controversial.

~~~
abalone
Right? All they’d know about you is your home address, where you take Ubers
to/from, where you like to eat, shop, places you post from, your habits over
time, and anything else they could correlate across the myriad apps that send
your precise, unique location to them. NBD.

~~~
shereadsthenews
This is why "home" is a few blocks away from home in my Uber profile and why I
allow it location services only when the app is running.

~~~
richardhod
Everybody should do this as standard, and it should be in all the 'howto
guides'!

------
minimaxir
Foursquare was the best data provider for casual geolocation analysis +
visualization and POI data (here's a scraper I had written for it:
[https://github.com/minimaxir/foursquare-venue-
scraper](https://github.com/minimaxir/foursquare-venue-scraper)), until a
April 2018 change neutered both the amount of returned metadata for Personal
API clients and the rate limits for those clients. (endpoint documentation:
[https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/api/endpoints](https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/api/endpoints))

It's disappointing, and this article is a reminder I need to add a
depreciation notice to that repo.

~~~
AznHisoka
Have you considered using the Facebook Places API?
[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/places/](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/places/)

~~~
freehunter
Facebook Places is good, but don't be any more reliant on it than Foursquare -
they deprecate APIs without warning too. I run a local news site and made
heavy use of their Events API (public events indexable by Google and visible
without signing in to Facebook available to anyone with a browser even today)
until they unceremoniously ripped it away without providing any advance
notification, a deprecation warning, or even any reason as to why it's gone.

I still use the Facebook Places API but I have no doubt it too will disappear
without any warning.

------
jcoffland
This hypertrending feature is very similar to how Google Maps tracks traffic.
Everyone using Google Maps is constantly uploading position information which
makes it possible for Google to infer traffic jams, among other things.

Of course, Google has a more plausible argument that it's users have opted in
even if very few realize their anonymized and aggregated position information
is being broadcast to the world.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Everyone using Google Maps is constantly uploading position information
> which makes it possible for Google to infer traffic jams, among other
> things.

That's the kind of data collection I can get behind, because it actually
provides direct value to the users providing the data that can only be had
through aggregation (though I would hope that we'll someday have a regulatory
framework that requires it be thoroughly anonymized).

Targeted advertising and retail foot-traffic analytics for hedge funds, not so
much.

------
JohnFen
This sort of spying is one of the reasons why my mistrust of apps, companies,
and smartphones keeps growing.

~~~
Yhippa
I've come to the realization that any app I use unless I'm paying for it
directly or lightly indirectly, is sending home as much data as it can about
me.

~~~
rrix2
I've never understood this idea. You might pay for AppX but if they use data
provided from LibraryY, nothing outside the privacy policy and license
agreement gives you any idea (much less control) Iver what LibraryY does,
regardless how much you paid for AppX. Paying isn't enough, you must read and
understand these agreements enough to know that most of the time "we partner
with certain 3rd parties and your usage of those third party libraries are
governed by their license agreement and privacy policies" type wording is all
you get besides a big old middle finger.

------
anthonybsd
So a few weeks ago this article circulated here:
[https://digiday.com/marketing/confessions-location-data-
exec...](https://digiday.com/marketing/confessions-location-data-exec/)

How does that reconcile with usefulness of the data Foursquare collects?
Wouldn't that mean that Foursquare location data comes from a very limited
subset of mobile users? I feel like I am missing something.

~~~
minimaxir
One trend I've noticed working with Foursquare data is that since anyone can
add POI, there are a lot of garbage POIs. A simple filter on the number of
check-ins alleviated that issue, but the new API no longer exposes that to
anyone besides Enterprise users.

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deftturtle
We've heard this many times before, but to what end? What does any of this
mean in practical terms? What's going to happen? I might be wrong, but nobody
I know actually uses Foursquare, and I'm not sure that it offers any tangible
value. It seems more people are realizing that location data is a liability
these days, and Apple is demanding greater protection for customer data. [1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904494)
[3] [https://www.wired.com/2016/01/foursquares-plan-to-use-
your-d...](https://www.wired.com/2016/01/foursquares-plan-to-use-your-data-to-
make-money-even-if-you-arent-a-user/)

------
AznHisoka
“I don't know how people will react to seeing a heat map in real time of where
all the phones are. I can imagine some people would be like, ‘That's the
coolest thing!’ And I can imagine some people would be like, ‘That's the
creepiest thing!’”

I don’t think I know anyone that would find that the coolest thing ever. maybe
the companies that buy the data, sure.

~~~
tw_hey_boss
Honest question: if the source of the data was anonymous (as in gdpr
anonymous, not “we use UUID instead of your name + SSN” anonymous) would you
find it cooler? Because we have the tech, but struggling to properly monetize.
Throwaway bc not sure if boss is OK with disclosure

~~~
jsutton
The problem is that given enough data, you can infer the identity of a what
would otherwise be an anonymous driver. If you could track an anonymous data
point (person) for multiple days, you could find out where the location data
was confined to for the longest times (home and work), etc.

~~~
tw_hey_boss
Yeah, that's the problem we solved. there are a few caveats, but it's
precisely why we don't consider UUIDs anonymous

~~~
JohnFen
How have you solved it? If you really have, then you're in a position to clean
up, since nobody else has managed to crack that nut.

Your mention of "gdpr anonymous" doesn't really give much reassurance, as you
can be GDPR compliant but still expose your users to de-anonymization.

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companyhen
So should I delete the app from my phone?

~~~
JohnFen
I don't think that would help much. If I understand what they're saying,
they're getting your location from lots of other apps and sources as well.

~~~
companyhen
Ah, so delete all the apps from my phone.

~~~
fhrow4484
You can make sure none of your apps have the Location permission turned on.

It won't prevent those apps from using IP address for approximate location,
but it would definitely reduce the accuracy.

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rajacombinator
Isn’t foursquare an app people used, like, 10 years ago? Ever seen anyone
using it? Do they have a business model?

~~~
JohnFen
I believe that the article itself answers all these questions.

