While Foursquare’s new product, Pinpoint, surely isn’t the only technology tracking your location these days, with the release of this new product, businesses can transmit targeted advertising depending on an individual’s location (or the individual’s locations in the past). Pinpoint, which was first announced on April 15, 2015, will send advertisements to individuals’ mobile devices based on where the individual has been physically located lately … or previously located for that matter. You might be wondering,
But can they send those advertisements to me? I’m not a Foursquare user.
The answer is: yes. Foursquare announced that this new product will use more than just its own databases to expand its geolocational marketing beyond its own troves of user data. But who will Foursquare get geolocational data on non-Foursquare users from? While the terms of any such agreements are not likely to become public, Foursquare does currently have relationships with third-party data partners like Microsoft, HTC, and Pinterest. As Pinpoint hits the streets we may begin to see consumer protests against this new kind of privacy invasion. We’ll continue to track its use.