“Oh this is clever. A trio of geeks — Barry Borsboom, Frank Groeneveld, Boy van Amstel — have put together a web site to demonstrate why telling the world where you are at all times may not be a great idea,” writes Brian Caulfield at forbes.com
Most of you might have heard about the site pleaserobme.com, a mashup of user’s content from Twitter and FourSquare, which is making a huge wave lately and getting a lot of attention lately.
The site shows a list of recent empty homes on their site which raises serious questions about the potential ills associated with publicizing information online, particularly a user’s whereabouts.
Groeneveld says, “We’re not trying to get people robbed, but helping them not get robbed. We’re just presenting this information in a more obvious way. And that’s our point: Everyone can see this on Twitter.”
The stated goal of the site is not really to promote burglaries, but rather to raise awareness about the dangers of over-sharing on public forums such as Foursquare, Brighkite, Google Buzz, and Twitter.
On one side the site is giving out organized, potential information that can be used for committing crimes, while the site has also created enough buzz to spread the awareness of the dangers of oversharing online.
So, is the site a boon or bane?
Online sharing and social networks have long been used to both commit crimes and solve crimes. In spite of all the crimes committed involving online social media, nothing much have curtailed the raise of the popularity of social networks and the information users share online.
In the end everything comes down to every online user to be aware of the potential risks associated with they say or share online. It is everyone own responsibility to take precautions to keep oneself safe.
Stay Safe!!
