Four Square - not just a schoolyard game anymore

I guess I've been breaking the #1 rule I learned as a child: don't talk to strangers. Between my blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and now FourSquare, sometimes it feels like I'm talking to no one but strangers. However I enjoy putting my thoughts and feelings out there and meeting new people online - it's just that after today, I think I'm going to set some stricter boundaries for myself.

I signed up for FourSquare a few months ago because I thought it was an online meetup site that coordinated random games of the actual game of FourSquare (you know the one I'm talking about - the four boxes and rubber ball). I was wrong. It's a geo-location social networking service where you "check in" and earn badges depending on your activity. Lately I've been semi-making fun of it: checking in at my desk, on the broken metro car, etc. But I can see the actual value in the service, when used correctly. Businesses can offer incentives to frequent customers, and you can find new spots in your city. But it's risky...

Today I was waiting for my dad and sister at an Italian restaurant. We were meeting for lunch before I drive back to DC (I have the day off). I was bored waiting, so I checked in at this Italian restaurant on FourSquare and allowed it to be published in my Twitter feed. No big deal. Not a lot of people in this area use Four Square and I added a line about how delicious the garlic knobs were at this place. My sister and dad finally showed up and we order. In the middle of ordering, another waitress comes up to our table and asks "Are you Meghan?".... I looked up and said "yes?" She said "you have a phone call..", and immediately I thought "Shit, this can't be a coincidence." If anyone needs to call me, they can call my cell phone. It's not exactly hard to get a hold of me either, you can tweet or email me at any time. I told the waitress that I'd rather not take the call - she didn't know who it was. She came back into the room and said "It's someone from the breast cancer cure - they want you to come to the phone." Wow. Talk about invasive AND persistent. The waitress saw the look of fear I apparently was wearing and said "I'll just hang up on them." My sister said it looked like I was about to cry. 

Not only did this person see that I was at lunch - they took the time to Google the restaurant and the phone number, then call and ask for me by name. I immediately deleted that tweet. But the entire time we were there I kept wondering if someone from this so-called breast cancer cure company was going to walk in or call again. The invasion of privacy was so surprising - it really hit me hard.

I learned a lesson though: FourSquare is not evil or a complete and evil invasion of privacy. Like all forms of social media, you just need to be careful. I didn't think anyone would see or care where I was for lunch, but by thinking that I made myself vulnerable to a spam or prank phone call. At first I thought "omg I'm deleting all my social media accounts" but I realized that was drastic. I just need to continue to be very calculated and careful about the information I publish about myself. It's that simple.

UPDATE: A Twitter friend (@riaglo) sent me a link to this site, Phone Losers. Sounds like they're behind the kind of stuff that happened to me today, though I have no idea if it was them since I refused to answer the phone. No matter, what if this was a pranker and not a breast cancer cure site spammer? That means they used my Twitter background and told me they represent a cause so meaningful to me - that is flat out wrong. I don't care if I was the one putting my stuff out there - that was hateful. And if it was a spammer, then they should have contacted me via Twitter of FourSquare, not by stalking the restaurant and calling me. Lame.