Monday, March 1, 2010

Web site opens the door to break-ins

BY AMBER HUNT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
To some, it's just another social networking tool for keeping tabs of friends and learning about cool places to go. To others, it screams, "I'm not home, so please rob me!"
Now, thanks to a Web site not-so-coincidentally titled Please Rob Me (www.pleaserobme.com), people who choose to post their whereabouts publicly via a network called Foursquare are finding their homes being labeled as burglary-ready.
The site's creators say the goal is to raise awareness and to prevent burglaries by encouraging people to be more judicious about what they post online. But some metro Detroiters say it's going too far.
"I completely realize that little information on the Internet is actually private," Andrew Leggat, 28, a Troy resident and Foursquare user, who responded by e-mail to a Free Press query via Twitter, "but I think this takes it to another level."
For the rest of the article follow the link to the Detroit Free Press article:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100228/NEWS06/2280505/1320/Web-site-opens-the-door-to-break-ins