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by princeofwands 2664 days ago
Yes. Foursquare sells your location data to other companies. These companies then know: Where you live, where you work, how you commute, if you use drugs, if you drink a lot, if you are gay, if you are religious, your favorite food, an estimate of your income, if you work out, ... Depending on the company and jurisdiction, they can then use this data to decline you their service or place you inside an advertisement bubble.

Edit: I do not understand the downvotes on this. You could help me form a better view on this, by replying or stating what is wrong. I am talking Enterprise Access to Foursquare data.

1 comments

> If you use drugs

> If you are gay/religious

Uh, neither of these can be inferred definitively from location data.

You do not need 100% accuracy.

Easy data mining: "Religious center" is a top-level category. "Religious school" is a type of "School". "Marijuana Dispensary" is a type of "Shop & Service". "Gay Bar" is a type of "Bar".

More evolved: Find location patterns that correlate with known gay or religious people (for instance by cross-referencing data sources).

https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/resources/categories