Foursquare and Privacy

Internet privacy is like a living room window: people occasionally glance over if the curtains are open but most of us do not shut the curtains for fear of someone trampling across the yard and peering in.

We are more likely to shut the curtains when the living room is a mess, when we are naked, beating our step-children, or otherwise having a private moment, but most of us don’t barricade ourselves in our homes for fear of being seen from the street.

The same reasoning applies to foursquare. Most of my friends are horrified by foursquare. An application that uses your phone’s GPS to broadcast your location to the internet seems absolutely crazy to them.

But like the curtains on the living room window, you are in control of when, how, and with whom you share your whereabouts, and you’re screwed if Johnny is looking for you either way.

Foursquare is a tool that allows you to interact with venues in your city. You can see who else frequents your favorite spots, find recommendations and interesting things in the area, and read reviews of new venues. Some businesses even offer discounts to people who frequently check in.

The updates from Foursquare can be sent to facebook, twitter, and your friends’ phones. You can chose when and where your updates go for each check in.

Foursquare also gives you stats on your check ins, if you are into that.

My favorite part about checking into a location is that it forces me to be conscious about what I am doing. I can’t con myself into believing that I am sticking to my diet if I just became the Major of Burger King.

So for all my burger loving people with open curtains, here are 5 privacy tips for Foursquare:

1. Foursquare is best for PDAs. While it is possible to update foursquare via text message, the application is pretty useless unless you have a PDA (Blackberry, iPhone, Android, etc.)

2. Shout! An under-utilized feature of foursquare is the ability to send a “shout” with your check-in. An update that you are at McDonald’s is not as interesting as an update about the twitching-bow-legged Miley Cyrus lookalike in front of you.

3. Home locations: Foursquare allows you to add locations, like your house, but if you are going to check in at home then don’t enter your exact address. You can enter an arbitrary location and position it near your home on Foursquare’s map. For example, my apartment is at “Somalia Ave, and Mexico St.” This also applies to your friends’ homes.

4. Routine: Most of us have a set schedule, but the world doesn’t need to know that you pull into your driveway at 4:45pm every day. There is no need to check in the moment you arrive somewhere. For example, you can check at work during your lunch breach, as you leave for the day, or even “hide” your location by unchecking the “tell my friends option.”

5. Interact: if you had a good experience at a venue then update the venue’s page and say so. That makes the service more valuable for everyone and is a great way to effectuate change. Did the service suck at the restaurant? Say so. The terrible review will cause savvy venues to address service issues and prevent others in your community from reliving your bad experience.

Those were my tips. Does anyone else have any useful foursquare tips/habits?