"PleaseRobMe" website highlights dangers of telling world your location

A website called PleaseRobMe has been launched to highlight the dangers of sharing too much information on the internet about your location.

The site pulls together updates on Twitter from people who publicly broadcast where they are at any given time, making the point that if they are in the pub, for instance, they are not at home and could be burgled.

The Dutch website lists "all those empty homes out there" and provides a running total of "new opportunities". The data is searchable by city or by people's Twitter usernames. A search for London reveals a stream of people who have recently left their houses.

The PleaseRobMe website has caused a stir, with some accusing it of making it easy for burglars to target people's homes.

The site took developers just a few hours to create after thousands began posting updates about where they were in the online social game Foursquare, which is based on a person's geo-location in the real world.

In Foursquare, a free application accessed through mobile phones, people send messages to friends and other players, including via Twitter, to say where they are. The more updates people give, the more places they visit, the more points they get. In some cases players "check in" at their own or a friend's home, giving the exact address.

There are several similar online applications, such as Gowalla, Brightkite and Google’s Latitude service.

The developers, Boy Van Amstel, Frank Groeneveld and Barry Borsboom, said that they did not want to encourage criminals, only to remind people that sharing information on the internet carried risks.

They say on the site: "Our intention is not, and never has been, to have people burglarized."

They explained: "On one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home. The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz, etc. Because all this site is is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information."

Crimestoppers advised people to think hard before they posted personal details online.

The Times. Feb 19, 2010.